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Monday, July 21, 2014

More Summer Reading!



    
Pop School Alphabet and CLC Funky Frame Graphics from www.letteringdelights.com


   It's summer reading time! Woop woop! So... this was our summer reading plan: read every night for at least twenty minutes per kid, with our soon-to-be-first-grader reading one book to us after we read one chapter to him. The reality? We went to the pool, we went for a walk on the beach at night, we played video games, ... :) We really have been reading, but it's just not quite the summer reading fest I'd had planned.
     We cleaned out a lot of closets and bookshelves, and that's where most of our summer reading material has been coming from. Old favorites are making a comeback, like Splat the Cat and Pete the Cat, science books about sharks and creatures from the deep, lots of Halloween and Christmas stories, and other books that we used to read to my oldest son, Archie, when he was younger. This time around, though, Archie is just amazed by how many of them he's able to read now on his own. It's so fun to see! As a parent, getting to see your kids really figure things out and grow like this? It's the best thing ever. It's that "teaching moment" you have in your classroom, but a million times better. :) And he's so excited! So he's been reading a lot of Berenstein Bears books to us, and we love, love, love the Mr. Putter and Tabby books too. My younger son, Tobie, (who just turned 5), loves listening to Archie read, but also loves hearing the superhero stories from Archie's Marvel Comics Super Hero Collection book. We finished up reading The Mouse Motorcycle too, and moved on to read Ralph S. Mouse. Some of the language in those stories seemed a little dated and I wasn't sure the boys would be into it, but they loved it! It was the first chapter book they really got into, and it was fun to get to read another book from the series together.
     We also went to see the sequel to How to Train Your Dragon (Oh! How I love that movie!!), so we just started reading the first book in the series. It's a little different from the movie, so it's not holding their interest as much, but we'll give it a little more time. Making that transition from picture books to chapter books is a little hard for my boys; even with the Ralph books they were still asking to see each page as we'd read, hoping for a picture.
       We've been writing in our summer journals a bit, too; usually when I'm making breakfast or dinner. That's one of my favorite things about summer, having more time for breakfast; they keep me company while I make pancakes and eggs and write in their journals instead of us all having to rush out the door. It's great. :) Plus, it's a great way to help them remember what they did over the summer, and also help me see what things made a big impression on them. Sometimes, it's so surprising! We went to the fair this summer, for example, and took them to see the monster truck show. We thought they'd love it! They had a great time, but what they wanted to write about was the unicorn doll from Despicable Me that they won for their baby sister at the game booths. :) Hey, as long as they're writing, right?
        We'll keep trying to read this summer, and keep an eye out for some fun new books, but right now I need to look online for some different things to do to keep my sweet boys busy these last few weeks, and also look up how to use the snake to try to fix the toilet (Tobie flushed a whole roll down "accidentally" and now it's making this funny "chuk!" sound... I think it's laughing at me... ;))

        Wish me luck!