A Fun Thing to Do at the Library!

I always struggle with ways to get my boys actively involved in book selection at the library. My oldest girl always begs to go to the library and keeps herself very busy searching for books while we're there. My two boys love reading books, but they often depend on me a little too much to pick out good books for them don't always put much effort into themselves on our library trips. My middle one is getting better bit by bit, but My Little Reader will still usually just quickly grab a few books to fill his bag and then want to go play with the trains or the computers.

This week we were all on a hunt for some new Christmas books to read (it was our Advent calendar activity for that day). I looked up some Christmas-y titles on the computer card catalog and starting browsing the shelves to find the books on my list.

My boys were wandering aimlessly so I enlisted their help. "Can you boys help me find this list of books? There's a lot of them. Work together and start by looking for 'E FON', then see if you find a Christmas book there." (I didn't write down all the book titles on my list.)

They were so excited to go hunting! My little guy wasn't able to find the call numbers himself, but with a little help from his big brother or from me, he could! Trying to then hunt out the Christmas title with that particular call number I gave them was like a treasure hunt. They were so proud of themselves with each book they found.

When we completed hunting out the books on our list, they begged me to make a new list so they could find some more. They seriously could have done that all day. And what great practice with their library skills and even practice with their alphabet and spelling.

To Have a Fun Library Book Hunt...

1. Choose a theme of books to look for (Holiday, Dogs, Back to School, etc.)

2. Do a computer catalog search and make a list of books to hunt for o
n the shelves. (You could involve your kids in this part too if you want.) Decide if you want to write down the book titles or just let your chosen theme guide your kiddos in hunting out the correct books.

3. Give your kids a list of the library call numbers your copied from the computer catalog. Or verbally tell your kids the call numbers as you go. If you want, you could write a few separate call numbers on separate sheets of paper and give one paper to each child. Let them race to find all the books on their list (if you trust them to not get too competitive and disruptive).

4. Assist younger children with this activity. It's great fun and helps them practice their alphabet and library skills. We sang the alphabet song a few times as we hunted for our books.

Snapshots of Summer Reading

This summer has been going by so fast. It's been pretty crazy, and feels a bit like a blur. We've been visiting our library in the midst of the chaos though and continuing to read. Here are a few snapshots I captured in some of those quiet, still moments.

O.K. this moment wasn't so quiet, but it was at least pretty still. We had some of our cousins staying with us and did Madlibs as bedtime stories. My kids love Madlibs and are really good at telling you what a noun, or verb, or adjective is.

This one's not necessarily a reading moment, but I wanted to share my cute little bulletin board I posted at my schools for our summer reading!

Did you know some LEGO sets come with little comic books? So fun!

The kids wanted to share some of their photo books they made with their aunt and cousin that were visiting. They felt so proud as she sat with them and each of their books aloud. 

We got the kids' cousin hooked on reading in bed with a night light while she was here visiting. So fun!

We visited a used bookstore and my sister grabbed some Shakespeare and challenged Mel to read some of it aloud. Here's him trying. Ha!

Finding Space for Reading

Summer never feels like a time when things slow down and life is a little less crazy. Our summers are busy, for the kids and for me. When I see these book lists on Pinterest titled things like "10 Best Beach Reads," I laugh. What mom is able to actually read at the beach (If you are a mom that does get to read at the beach, please don't tell me, or I might cry)? I'm always busy making sure my kids don't get pulled out to sea by a rip current.

... Or I'm burying kids in the sand!

Not only does extra reading hardly ever seem to happen, but I struggle to maintain the little bits of regular reading time we normally observe. Travel and late bedtimes mean we sometimes miss our bedtime stories.

My Little Reader hasn't done much napping this summer and I only just realized today that no nap means we haven't been reading our normal pre-nap stories.

My kids love to stay up and read with their book lights at night, and even that has been falling by the wayside as they are so often zonking out as soon as they hit the pillow, as of late.

When there are lulls in their days and they get bored, I have seen my kiddos pick up books and read... from time to time.

They begged to do the summer reading program at the library, and have happily been picking out books that interest them on our regular trips.

They are slowly learning to read for the pure pleasure of it. So all is not lost.

But as we creep toward the start of another school year, and I look toward days containing some kind of routine again, I realize that I need to really be intentional with our reading times. I need to guard our established reading routines, perhaps reinstate some that have been lost, and I hope to work more reading time into our routine wherever I can. We will be homeschooling in the fall, so I'm excited about getting creative with how we find time to read, and simply having the control over our routine to give reading the prioritization that I crave.

Finding space for reading turns our to be easier said than done, even for those of us that understand its value and enjoy books. So how to you find space to read in the craziness and busyness of summer?

Our bedroom floors are always covered in books, so we've at least got that going for us!

Make a Play Mat! Build Letter Knowledge!

My Little Reader has been really into Tonka's Chuck Trucks lately. They have a Chuck Truck show on Netflix, which is the driving the force behind this current obsession of his. 

I needed to keep him busy one day while we had a repair guy at the house and so I whipped out some big paper and some art supplies and we made a play mat together for his trucks and cars. 

I decided to give the activity an "Alphabet City" theme so we could work in some letter-knowledge practice as well! He loved it!

You don't need any fancy supplies to make this. Basically just some big paper and some crayons (see above). If you don't have a roll of large craft paper, the plain side of some wrapping paper might work as well. 

We rolled two lengths of paper out side by side to get the size we wanted, and then used the tape to attach the two pieces together on the back. Then we got to drawing!

Besides the alphabet stickers, we used whatever other stickers we had in our sticker box that might work for our Alphabet City. You could probably think of some cool ideas for your Alphabet City with a lot of those miscellaneous craft supplies in your art cabinet at home!

I just free-handed the road shape. My son told me what directions he wanted the road to go, then I drew it that way as best I could.

My son and I worked together to draw a variety of features on our mat: shops, library, pond, gas station, etc. Be creative, and let your child come up with the ideas as much as possible. My son was struggling to think up some ideas, so I drew some generic buildings and then pointed to each and asked, "What should this one be?" That helped kick-start his ideas. 

We named and labeled our buildings and locations as we went. We tried to cover as many letters of the alphabet as we could with our names and labels. I would say the name of a place to My Little Reader and then he would figure out the first letter(s) and find it on our sticker sheet. Then I would write-in the rest of the name next to the sticker (see photos above). 

The fun doesn't stop when you're done drawing!

This activity kept My Little Reader busy for hours. Literally. Try it!

Other alphabet play mat ideas your little one might enjoy making and then using with their toys:
- Alphabet Zoo
- Alphabet Kingdom (I'm thinking fairy and princess theme)
- Alphabet Jungle
- Alphabet School
- Alphabet Circus

Happy Reading Moments

I wouldn't call my kids avid readers. One or two of them might be heading that direction, but I still have to encourage reading, or bedtime might be the only time it happens. And life has been busy lately, and there have been plenty of days when it only happens at bedtime. Oh, and naptime too!

Yes, my kids like books. But like most kids (and adults), they can often be pulled other directions by life's busyness and distractions. I savor the moments I find my kiddos reading with little to no prompting from me. 

... Like at Chick Fil A. I love when there's a book in the kids meal, and my son begs me to read it to him instead of playing on the playground. This was one from the Franklin series. And he also still pulls his Chick Fil A Cowborg comic books from his bookshelf for me to read to him (his big brother is getting sick of them). 

We visited our local used bookstore and spent a fortune on all the books the kids carefully selected from the shelves. 

I cracked up when I found these books on our used bookstore visit. The top title is my 4 year old's excuse for not doing what I ask, and the bottom title is my 9 year old's excuse.

This is where I can find My Little Reader on the day his Lego Jr. magazine arrives in the mailbox. 

When my 9 year old is bored, he will resort to reading aloud to his little brother. Love catching them in these moments. 

My 4 year old also enjoys his Turtle magazine subscription!

The TV is right there, and yet she's curled up with her Nook! Yay!

She told me this past week that reading has become like watching TV to her. She says she doesn't want to stop reading. Have I mentioned she's gone up almost 2 reading levels since November? Very proud of her. 

Caught him reading a book from his Easter basket behind a chair. 

And just to keep it real, I will add to all this that my kids are total screen enthusiasts as well. We put limits on screen time, but could stay glued to it all day if we let them. There sure is more and more stuff competing with reading time now, isn't there? How do you encourage reading at your house?

Robot Zombie Frankenstein: The next book you should add to your collection

I was thrilled when Annette Simon allowed me to review a copy of her picture book Robot Zombie Frankenstein. I tend to also be a tad nervous about reviewing picture books, because what if I don't like  it??? I luckily did not have to confront that fear with this review, because Robot Zombie Frankenstein was a home run with My Little Reader.

Simon's book tells the story of two robots that get into a friendly game of one-upping each other with various disguises. Zombies, pirates, space-invaders... the fun-factor increases with each page. Who will win this robot-battle? I don't want to give any spoilers, but a peace-offering finally ends the feud, and a friendship is formed by book's end. You'll have to check out the book to see what brings about the peace!

I honestly wasn't quite ready to show my son this book yet when I did. I was waiting for a nice chunk of time to do a solid read through and some kind of planned activity. But he found it sitting in my room and instantly snatched it up and demanded I read it to him. OK, so I know it's cover has some obvious kid-appeal...

My Little Reader is such a Mr. Literacy Launchpad Jr., he saw the layout of colorful geometric shapes on the endpapers at the front of the book and started suggesting crafts and projects we could use these shapes as inspiration for: "Let's make these shapes with paper, Mom, and then glue them together into our own robots..." These endpapers were definitely one of his favorite parts of the book - he kept going back to them even after reading the story several times.

The bold, colorful robots, set against the clean white background was visually appealing to my son and I alike. It seemed to feel accessible to my son, something he got, and could then mock and expand upon in his own creative way. The predictable catchiness of the text had the same effect. I caught my son flipping through the book on his own and "reading" it aloud independently just by the visual cues in the illustrations and being able to recall the incredibly fun and simple text that had stuck with him so solidly after just a few readings.

Robots have such a mass-appeal with kids of a variety of ages. And this book is so creativity-inspiring for little ones. I have bunches of ideas of fun activities to do after reading this book with your kids or students. You'll see some of those ideas in an up-coming video post (I'm in the planning stages of launching a full Literacy Launchpad YouTube channel!).

In the meantime, check out some of the fun My Little Reader was having with this book this week. This was all initiated by him! Love that kid! Love this book!

Buy the book!

 

Visit Annette Simon online HERE!

Just Add Picture Books!

Looking for an easy way to make an ordinary activity in your home or classroom something special? Just add a picture book! Literally, that's all you have to do.

You might assume I spend my days when I'm at home with my preschooler doing all kinds of creative, throughly planned out, educational activities. I don't.

But when my son pulled his finger paints out of the art cabinet this past week and wanted to get messy, it made me think of Leo Lionni's book Little Blue and Little Yellow. I went and grabbed it off my bookshelf thinking it might be fun to show him a story about mixing colors to inspire him with his paints.

This led to my son mixing his colors, and narrating his own little story as he worked. It was fun and beautiful to watch. I hadn't planned or prepped anything. He asked to do an activity and I just added a picture book!

And here's a short video of my little guy's creative process!

Forget the Reading Race

My youngest son, My Little Reader, is now four years old and in preschool. It's becoming difficult not to notice now where other kids are with their literacy and reading skills and compare my little guy to them. I see his peers coming to class with him each week, and I'm in preschools every week working with my own Literacy Launchpad students... There's a pressure isn't there, to feel like your kid has to be right where every other kid is academically, or even ahead? I find myself stressing more and more lately that I'm not spending enough time working on this skill or that skill with my son and that he'll be behind all the other kids his age.BUT then I remember all that I learned in my studies in college, as well as in my years of teaching Literacy Launchpad - that it doesn't matter when a child learns to read, it matters how much they learn to love reading. And often, heavy-handed efforts to get our kids to start reading at an early age can leave them not really wanting to read. 

I was skimming through Jim Trealease's Read Aloud Handbook this week and he quotes an education adage, reminding parents that "'What we teach children to love and desire will always outweigh what we teach then to do.'" He goes on to say that "The fact is that some children learn to read sooner than others, and some better than others. There is a difference."

I felt encouraged as I read through the pages of Trelease's book. I was reminded of the power of simply reading to my kids as much as I can, giving them a rich literacy environment, and keeping away from flash card drilling and phonics worksheets as a means to teach my kids reading. 

Our eduction system seems to push for formal reading instruction at an earlier and earlier age. I've personally experienced parents that push teachers to do reading instruction earlier and earlier. Sometimes I see preschools teaching skills that kids aren't even developmentally ready to handle yet. Often our schools can be very good at teaching our kids how to read, but as Trelease points out, the research shows that they usually aren't very good at teaching them to want to read. 

Did you know Finland has higher reading scores than the US, but doesn't begin to formally teach their children to read till age seven? Our focus here in the states, in getting our kids to read early and to read well misses the point. None of that matters if they don't want to read. We end up with kids who read at school and not any other time. 

Trelease and the experts and researchers he quotes in his book don't think there's anything necessarily bad about early reading necessarily, but they feel a child should arrive at that skill on their own, without a structured time each day when someone is sitting down with them and teaching them letters, sounds, and syllables. 

I'm so glad I took some time to get my head back on straight this week. I'm thrilled that my kiddo enjoys books and gets excited about reading time. I need to forget about the big "reading race" and revel in that. I probably need to make space in our day for even more time to simply read books aloud to my son, and stick some of the phonics instruction books I've been eyeing back up on my shelf. My son might not be diving into the Harry Potter series solo anytime soon, but he sure does love him some books and that's what matters in the long run. 

Do you (or did you) ever worry that your child isn't learning certain skills early enough? Do you find yourself comparing your child to their peers like me? Tell me I'm not alone!

The Pretend Reading Milestone!

There is a lot of value in the pretend reading our little ones do before the real thing starts. It is an important pre-reading milestone! You can get an idea of your child's understanding of how reading works when they are pretend reading. Do they hold the book right? Do they understand where the words are that they "read?" Do they turn the pages the correct direction? Do they understand that it's the same story every time they read it?

These are all important things for pre-readers to grasp in order for real reading to eventually happen. Reading to your child frequently and regularly will teach them these important print concepts and book handling concepts. Letting them "read" to you (or their friends, or toys, or whomever) will help as well.

Use these pretend reading moments to ask questions if you can, gently guide them in how to handle the book... and to just revel in the adorableness of this milestone!

As you can see below, my son has evolved through various stages of pretend reading. You can see his progression in the videos here below.





It started out as with My Little Reader not really understanding much about book handling, or which way the pages turn or the text is read. He just wanted to "read" too!




Then he began to understand that the print told the story of what was happening in the illustrations. But he still didn't have a handle on which direction you read the words, or even turn the pages.






He started to become a little more solid in his book handling. (He's reading to his brother, who is in the shower.)






And then he understood that the story in a book was always the same every time you read it. He could remember and then retell the basic points of a story that he heard read to him once or twice.






Now he can memorize, almost verbatim, most of a story after hearing it once or twice.He understands that it's not just that the story and ideas in the story never change, but that there are specific words in the text that tell the story exactly the same way every time. And he's now beginning to genuinely sound out and read some of the simple words in some books. In this video, he reciting most of the text from memory, but the rhyming words he is sounding out and reading.

Does your little one like to pretend read? I would love to hear about it in the comments!

Using Digital Scrapbooks to Turn Kids Into Authors

I remember how much I loved creating my own story books as a kid. But they were never very fancy; usually they were just some pieces of plain white paper, or maybe some colored construction paper, stapled together. And not that there's anything wrong with that; it's great. But I have been amazed lately by how easy it is these days to help your child create a beautiful storybook, that looks and feels like it was actually published!

My son loves creating his own books. I stuffed his Easter basket this past year with some blank books for him to create in. He filled those quickly. So when he was asking the other week to create another book and asking if I would buy him more blank books, I had an idea. I suggested he create a story with his Legos, that I would take photos to use as illustrations, and that we could use the computer to compile them into a book that he could write the words for.

He loved the idea, and went straight to work coming up with his Lego story. I figured he would need some help and prompting with arranging his Legos for the photos, but he didn't want or need help with that. He readily created a story, arranging and dictating continually as we plugged away at it. It was so fun to witness, I was really proud of him and his storytelling!

Sitting down at the computer with him to lay it out in a photo book was entertaining. He again needed no help coming up with what words he wanted to pair with each illustration. He came up with hysterical character names. (One character was named "Donkey Rash." I have no idea where he came up with that one.) And the dialogue between all those characters was adorable!

The completed book came in the mail this past week and he is so proud of it! He has me read it to him every day (his brother is getting really sick of it.). He can't get enough of hearing his story told over and over again!

My son loves when we talk about how he's the author and illustrator of this awesome book! He almost can't believe it! Unfortunately, this particular photo book we made didn't allow us to put his name (or even a photo) on the cover. In fact, I wasn't pleased with the website we used in general; I really struggled to figure out how to lay out the book the way I wanted, and was never quite satisfied with it. Then when it arrived in the mail, there were even more errors in it. But my son doesn't notice those things. He just loves it.

So if you're looking for something fun to do with your kiddos, here's a great activity to try. Plus, it encourages literacy! Plus, it makes for a great keepsake for you as a parent!

Let your child come up with creative ideas for making their illustrations. They could use photos of toys, people (themselves/their friends and family), artwork they create... Lots of possibilities!

Have you ever made a book like this with your kids? How did it turn out? What kind of process did they use to make it? Or have you used another method for helping your child create their own book? I would love to hear about it in the comments!!