Reading with Sis and some videos

It's fun to find pictures and videos of Mystery Baby on my camera that I didn't even know about. :)

1. 
   

Reading Buddies

March Randomness

Little Guy and an X-Wing or some other Star Wars creation from Duplos.

Dr. Seuss Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes

Little Guy requested a book be read to him, PS and Buddy decided they wanted to listen in as well.

B teaching Little Guy to play Minesweeper.

Little Guy's pirate ship.

A monkey pirate ship.

He's ours after all.  Buddy has finally taken an interest in reading.

Buddy: pre-haircut

Buddy: post-haircut

President's Day Book Club

We belong to a little homeschool book club that changes location and topic each month, meeting at a different family's home.  In early February we had a President's Day book club and talked about Lincoln and Washington.  They made hats, and they had a log cabin building contest.  One of the other moms took pictures.

Baby Genius!

We like to declare our kids baby geniuses at various points of their babyhood.  And granted, Little Guy is nearly four and not quite a baby anymore, but I like Baby Genius better than Child Genius or Child Prodigy.  Although all are fitting.  :)

We checked out these Bob books from the library a few months ago.  He already knew all the sounds the letters make thanks to this video.  B sat down with him and the first few times, Little Guy would sound out the word but was unable to put the sounds together to read the word.  If B sounded it out, he could figure out the word.  Eventually he's gotten to where he sounds out the letters and then knows the word.  He's worked his way through the Bob books mostly and the other day started reading some of our K12 Kindergarten phonics books with B.  This video is the first time he's ever read this particular story.  He read the title and the first line and then B ran and got the camera.  We have some earlier footage of him reading the Bob books, but it looks as though B uploaded them to his computer, and his computer isn't home right now. 

Our little reader:
http://youtu.be/A-fExDb84fg

Books

This is the load of library books we had to return today.  And we kept about a dozen at home to finish reading.

Reading books together. Little Guy usually shows up with a stack of several books when it's time to read books with Daddy.





(And a peek at my new bedding, although the green isn't right in the picture.)

Big Sister

Princess Sparkley reading a book to her little brother. (Ignore Baby X's finger in his nose.) I LOVE that she can read him books so I don't have to read "Moo, Baa, La, La, La" or "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" thirty times a day. I just say, "Oh, take that book to [Princess Sparkley] and have her read it to you" when Baby X comes at me with a book and I'm busy and he says, "Oh, [Princess Sparkely]" and runs off to find her. Awesome.

Read Aloud in 2009

I'm taking off the 2009 chapter books we read aloud list from the sidebar, but wanted to preserve the list:

• Nicholas Again by Rene Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempe
• Nicholas by Rene Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempe
• Nurk by Ursula Vernon
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
• The Castle Corona by Sharon Creech
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
• Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid by Megan McDonald
• The Borrowers by Mary Norton
• The Littles to the Rescue by John Peterson
• The Case of the Invisible Dog by E.W. Hildick
• Freddy the Detective by Walter R. Brooks
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• Ramona Forever by Beverly Cleary
• Jack Russell, Dog Detective: Dog Den Mystery by Darrel and Sally Odgers
• Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
• Bubble and Squeak by Philippa Pearce
• Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go by Annie Barrows
• Hotel for Dogs by Lois Duncan
• Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary
• Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye by Geronimo Stilton (Elisabetta Dami)
• Jack Russell, Dog Detective: The Lying Postman by Darrel and Sally Odgers
• Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald
• Jack Russell, Dog Detective: The Buried Biscuits by Darrel and Sally Odgers
• Ivy and Bean by Annie Barrows
• The Story of Trains by Jane Bingham

Bookshelves

Remember this pile of books:


It now looks like this:


B and I decided to use our Christmas and birthday money from my parents to buy bookshelves. On Tuesday we scoped them out at IKEA (LOVE that I live close to an IKEA now) and on Wednesday B drove back with the car seats out of the car so he could lay down the backseat and fit all the bookshelves in the car. They are black-brown, not black like they look in the picture. We figured that we are going to have an eclectic display of bookshelves, so we shouldn't try to make them match. He and Buddy became experts at assembling bookshelves while we were in Ohio. They built three sets of bookshelves for B's parents. (Buddy apparently built the third one on his own with some help.) So B assembled these and dragged the boxes down from PS's room and we unloaded books. We still have 5-6 boxes of books that are mainly kids books that are too old for PS still, or textbooks, etc. We have a bookshelf in our bedroom that is for our pocket paperback books that we got all organized. Plus the big one from the original picture that was a wedding present from my brother and his wife. And we have three smaller bookshelves full of kid books. And one smaller bookshelves full of B's school books and reference books, etc.

Petunia's Christmas

I found this book, Petunia's Christmas by Roger Duvoisin, at the library the other day and immediately checked it out so I could relive my childhood. I LOVED this book when I was little. Conveniently I then came across this blog post with a craft to accompany the story. Here's the end result at our house:


by Princess Sparkley



by Buddy (and Mom)

The National Gallery

You Can't Take a Balloon into The National Gallery

I took the kids to the National Gallery in Washington DC on Saturday. Thanks to my wonderfully creative sister-in-law who reminded me that this book existed and loaned me her copy, we had a pretty fun time.

The book, (from the same illustrator as the Fancy Nancy books), tells a story with only pictures, no words. There's a fun map in front of the balloon's route around DC. The back of the book lists all of the real artwork with credits, as well as telling you about famous Americans that are drawn into many of the scenes. The basic premise of the story is a grandma (or possibly older mom) taking her two grandkids (or possibly children) to the National Gallery, but the girl has a balloon, and you can't take a balloon into the National Gallery. They end up tying the balloon to a photographers George Washington cardboard cut-out outside and they enter the museum.

While they are seeing the famous artwork, the balloon has become free and is having an adventure of its own around famous DC landmarks. The artwork depicted in the book is real artwork owned by the National Gallery (it's not always all on display, we saw artwork that my sister-in-law had marked as not on display, and she saw paintings that weren't on display when we visited). Along with the real artwork are drawings of the balloons crazy adventures that are very similar to the artwork the grandkids are seeing in the gallery. For instance:

My kids were wimpy about reenacting the exact pose.
And my camera took a terrible picture with the lighting in here.

The National Gallery is HUGE! There were a lot of sections that we hurried through. But there were also sections that my kids really enjoyed. Baby X loved the displays of horse armor and kept blowing raspberries (his horse noise). He also liked any paintings involving dogs or babies. Thank goodness for the periods of art history where women were depicted with their babies, or when drawing the Madonna with baby was hugely popular.

When we first entered the museum, I asked the woman at the information desk for anything they had special for kids. She handed me a glossy sheet of paper with about 20 one inch square pictures of artwork in the museum that kids tend to like (a statue of a girl ballerina, a painting of a fluffy white dog, a portrait of George Washington, etc.) to use as a sort of I Spy game. This, mixed with the book and the artwork from it we were trying to find, really helped keep the kids interested. Someone also suggested going to the gift shop first and letting each kid pick out a postcard of a piece of artwork (75 cents) and then they try to find it while you tour the museum. I didn't happen upon the gift shop until the end, so I let them each pick a postcard of their favorite artwork. Princess Sparkley picked a postcard of the girl ballerina statue. Buddy picked a postcard of Washington DC on the fourth of July with fireworks (not exactly the artwork postcard I was going for) and I chose Wayne Thiebaud's famous "Cakes" painting.*

I'm not going to lie to you and say it was all wonderful and the kids were great art enthusiasts. Taking a 7 year old, a 5 1/2 year old, and especially a 21 month old to an art gallery by myself was not easy. About halfway through the main floor Baby X was losing it. We took a break, went out on the front steps and ate snacks for about 20 minutes. We were yelled at by five museum guards:
1. Buddy pushing Baby X in the stroller sort of wildly in an exhibit room while I tried to help PS take a picture of a painting she wanted to photograph.
2. In the modern art part of the museum Buddy was trying to get really close to a painting (because modern art is excitingly crazy) and a guard had to tell us to stay 12 inches back... he was actually really nice about it.
3. Buddy absentmindedly running his hand along a table in the middle of an exhibit room. Apparently this table was on exhibit... it was just the first art of that type we'd come across.
4. Buddy absentmindedly running his hand along a large, weird statue in a foyer/stairway area that was also, apparently artwork. This guard was nice and friendly about it as well.
5. In the modern art building there are trees with little circle benches around them in the foyer. Buddy was walking around speedily on one of these little walls... no where near any artwork, but the guard didn't want him to fall.

Buddy and Princess Sparkley on the steps of the National Gallery
Princess Sparkley is in light blue, just left of center.

Baby X (freed from his stroller), PS and Buddy on the steps of the National Gallery

Between the National Gallery and the East building that houses the modern art museum, is this courtyard with glass pyramids. The pyramids, it turns out, are skylights that look down into the cafe. We then went down to the concourse between the two museums and saw the pyramids as skylights. Riding the flat escalator walkway between the two museums, underground, may have been the highlight of the trip for Buddy.

In the modern art museum.

*I'm planning a complete kitchen design around his cake paintings now.