Mamacita and Mr G. are both learn­ing to read. Mr. G is learn­ing to rec­og­nize words. While Mamacita is in the ear­lier stages of “read­ing” a book, mean­ing she looks at the pic­tures & tries to tell a story based on the pic­tures in the book. She’s try­ing to under­stand the under­ly­ing mean­ings to words, & it’s darn cute. Espe­cially when her sto­ries involve dia­logue. “Oh, what do we have here? A sugar bug? Bet­ter get the bug spray.” Let’s hope she real­izes sugar bugs don’t require actual bug spray before she goes on to med­ical school–what am I push­ing? Just because she reads books on the den­tist and Dora going to the doc­tor doesn’t mean she’s going to med­ical school? Well, I think it just might.

Tech­no­rati Tags: book, fam­ily, kids, read­ing

After Christ­mas (as in the very next day) we started “Project Orga­nize” at our house. We went to IKEA, because we can’t resist the lure of IKEA, and the RIBBA Ledges came home with us. I wanted some­thing so the kids could remove a book they wanted with­out the chaos of ALL the books end­ing up ALL over the floor. As was often the case with the more tra­di­tional book shelf. We needed some­thing that made use of unused space & wouldn’t break the bank. These ledges do just that, orig­i­nally they were designed for pic­ture frames but I find they are per­fect for mak­ing books acces­si­ble. You can even theme your books on dif­fer­ent shelves & the ledges come in dif­fer­ent lengths. We have vary­ing lengths set up in the base­ment which is where this pic­ture was taken. I took the pic­ture a lit­tle off-center so you could see how the ledge looks with­out any books in it (see the left of the ledge–open space). We also plan to add some above each child’s bed, so they can have the books they like to read before bed right there. Over­all, these have been a rag­ing success.

Tech­no­rati Tags: books, IKEA, kids, project orga­nize, read­ing

One of our favoritest (Yes, that is a word. Why? Because I say it is) books in the whole wide world is Glad Mon­ster, Sad Mon­ster: A Book About Feel­ings. It’s by Ed Ember­ley & Anne Miranda. We were intro­duced to it through the preschool the chil­dren have attended. The preschool uses it as part of their feel­ings sec­tion & the kids LOVE it. Each child has their own favoritest mon­ster, well except for D-man. He has a lit­eral taste for all the mon­sters. Seri­ously, the kid will try to eat anything.

Mr. J’s…Glad Monster.

Mr. G’s…Silly Monster.

Mamacita’s…Loving Mon­ster.

You can hold the mon­ster faces up to your own & use them as a way to talk about what you are feel­ing or what makes you feel wor­ried or angry (it cov­ers these too). The kids think it’s freak­ing hilar­i­ous to see Mommy or Daddy or any­one for that mat­ter put on the mon­ster face. Well, actu­ally I would hope NOT just any­one. I mean if it was the mail­man enter­tain­ing my kids then I’d won­der why the heck was the mail­man using our book & why was he enter­tain­ing my kids…wait where was I?

Oh yah, the book.

You can also have the kid­dos cre­ate their own feel­ings mon­sters. But no fair ask­ing lit­tle Timmy why he wants to be an angry mon­ster who destroys his sister’s toys & doesn’t he want to be a happy mon­ster who loves but­ter­flies. Because it’s about them learn­ing to express feel­ings in a healthy way. Not like a lot of us adults who express them by eat­ing a car­ton of ice cream or yelling at strangers while dri­ving. I mean really they should know NOT to be in the fast lane if they’re only going to drive 50 miles an hour. It’s a 70 mile an hour zone! Move it OR Lose it.

Hmm…It might be time for me to make my own feel­ings monster.

Tech­no­rati Tags: book, ed ember­ley, fam­ily, kids, mon­sters, read­ing