Audio Books (See Also: How a Stay-At-Home-Mom Stays Sane)

If you're at home with your kids during the day (or even if it's just on the weekends), and you're anything like me, you probably don't like having the T.V. on much, if at all. My sister and I have frequently discussed the dilemma of this, because often the T.V. is the closest thing to adult contact we get during the long, lonely weekdays. Especially during the winter when there's not a whole lot you can go do to get out of the house.

Solution? Go visit your local library and pick up some audio books! It may not be quite the window to the outside world you're used to with the T.V., but it's something to keep you company, it won't put your children into a zombie-like trance (like the T.V. does to my son), and your children will probably enjoy it! Not to mention, it can help improve their literacy skills (much more than T.V. can).

Another perk of audio books? I rarely have time to sit down and just read lately it seems. But with audio books I can listen while I cook, clean the kitchen, fold the laundry, or play on the floor with my son. It's a great way for me to catch up on some of the reading I've been wanting to do.

There are many options when it comes to finding audio books. There are MP3s, CDs, and cassettes. Not many people still have cassette players, but if you do, I've found that there's quite a bit more selection to choose from at the library. Also, podcasts are an option. I like to listen to podcasts from Just One More Book and Children's Book Radio. As well as podcasts from my church, and Mars Hill.

In the photo above, you can see what we've been listening to lately around here. The Phantom Tollbooth and Mama Don't Allow are from the library. Just So Stories and The Story Tree were Christmas gifts from Isaac's Gramma and PaPa.

My son is only six months old, so he only has a very limited appreciation (if any) of audio books, but I still pick up audio CDs of picture books and JV fiction. Partly because I enjoy hearing those too!

The T.V. stays off during the day at our house for the most part (football on the weekends is the big exception). We do the majority of our T.V. watching in the evening, after our son is asleep (thank you, DVR). We aren't totally anti-T.V., but we don't really want our son watching a ton of it. Especially not before he turns two-years-old.

So go ahead, dust off that old boom-box (check out my huge one in the photo above) and turn off Dr. Phil. You'll be glad you did!

Oh, and let me know what some of your favorite audio books are!

My Little Reader

So now that my teaching load has lightened up significantly due to motherhood, my number one student has become my son, Isaac. I try to make a point to read to him everyday, but I'll admit there are busy days that speed by with no reading (gasp)! This happened a lot during the first four months when were battling through colic and then reflux. Anybody that has experienced either of those can feel where I'm coming from, I'm sure. But those days of missed readings are few and far between now that he's getting older, and appreciates his books more and more.

When he was only a few months old, I was most successful with my readings if I propped him against a pillow and snuggled next to him. He really liked seeing my facial expressions as I read the story, and if I really immersed myself in making the appropriate faces and voices, I would often get a giggle out of him!

Now he likes to taste everything, and so it's often a struggle to read much of a story before it goes into the mouth and is covered in drool. Books that come from the library are not allowed in the mouth for a couple reasons: they're not ours, and germs, uh... gross! So that can make things tough sometimes too. All in all though, he seems to enjoy being read to. And he is an expert page-turner. I love showing off his page-turning skills to others!

Check out these photos of my little reader:


This is one of his favorite stories. We have the CD with the song on it too, and I often find myself playing it over and over and over again for him in the car. Ever seen the movie Big Daddy? Remember the "Kangaroo Song" in it? I fear we may be headed that direction with Snuggle Puppy. Yikes!


We started a tradition this year of giving him a Christmas book to open on Christmas Eve and read together. I think it will be neat for him to accumulate a collection of Christmas books as he grows up, one from each year of his life.


O.K. so this one's not exactly a photo of him reading a book. He's browsing some kind of an AV catalog with his daddy. It's... kind of reading. Ha!

Do you have a reading routine with your little one(s)?

A Literacy Launchpad Nursery

I always knew that when I had a baby, I wanted to have some kind of a reading theme in the nursery. I also knew that I didn't want to spend much money. So here's a little glimpse of what the hubby and I created for our little guy.


I really like this mobile. It was part of a whole bedding set, but I only needed the mobile, and it sure does look nice with the rest of the room (IMO). It's an elephant with the word "BABY" dangling from the legs (one letter from each leg). Our crib and changing table were purchased from a friend for a steal!


The letter blocks came from a garage sale, and are attached to a super-cheap curtain rod from Lowe's.


Isaac's Gramma made him this quilt. She let me choose the fabrics and theme, so of course, I love the way it turned out. She used a really cute story book fabric to back the quilt. Wish I had taken a photo of that also. Gramma also made the bumper, bed skirt, and window valance.


These are framed prints from a Children's Literature calendar I had. I think it was titled Celebrating Children's Books, or something like that. I don't think they make these calendars anymore. I wonder why. I loved them! I actually had these calendars from a few years, so I had quite a few prints to choose from. I figure I can rotate the pictures if I want, but I'm pretty happy with the ones I chose. The frames came from Michael's. they were on sale for $5 a piece.

It's Been A While

I've obviously been absent for a while as I have been adjusting to motherhood and a new school year. I have seriously scaled back my teaching schedule, and am now only teaching one day a week. This is due to two reasons: 1) I wanted to be home more with my baby boy 2) Enrollment was so low at many of my centers that after paying a sitter, I wasn't breaking even. I'm assuming that low enrollment has been due to the tough economy, as I have never had issues with enrollment in my previous years, and have not done anything different this year.

I miss many of my old students, but am really enjoying this new schedule. I love my time with my son. I love being there for all those special moments. And working one day a week allows me to get enough of a break to stay sane, while doing what I love.

Also, I have plans of pursuing publishing some of my Literacy Launchpad curriculum in some way, shape, or form. I'll keep you posted on that. Teaching one day a week allows me to test run new stories and lesson ideas that I might include in my publishing pursuits. Perfect!

I'm also offering Literacy Launchpad classes at my local rec center, but for whatever reason those never seem to take off (I have offered them in there in previous years too).

That's an update on what I'm up to. I will be posting lesson ideas and reflections again soon!

Time To Work?

For the past nine months I have been trying to figure out how I will juggle motherhood and Literacy Launchpad. I always thought the two would mesh so seamlessly, but now that I'm dealing with the reality of managing both, I'm wondering how I will fare. I am a perfectionist, very all or nothing. So how can I be the perfect mom and the perfect teacher? They're both such time consuming jobs.

People juggle teaching and parenthood all the time though. I guess it's something you adjust to? I haven't even begun doing Literacy Launchpad work this summer in preparation for the school year, and already I feel as though there aren't enough hours in the day. I hope my life doesn't spin into total chaos once the school year officially begins...

So it's time for me to start working on lesson planning and such. I sorted through my lesson plans and have decided that I wasn't completely happy with how some of my September lessons went that are slated for repeat this year, so I want to come up with a new month of lessons for September. Hopefully I'll find some great inspiration. I also need to prep for enrollment kick-off; renew insurance and business licenses, line up a great sitter for my little one, etc. etc. Yikes!

So how do all you teaching mothers do it? I know there are many of you out there. Got any tips or encouragement? Can it be done??

He's Here!

My little bundle of joy arrived on the 4th of July. He's our little firecracker! Everything went awesome with the delivery and we've been home for a couple weeks visiting with family and adjusting to life with a newborn. Newborns sleep a lot, but yet it still seems tough to get much done with him around... I'm hoping I get the hang of all this mommy stuff soon and get back to blogging more regularly.