SPIDERS!

October is a month of spiders at Literacy Launchpad. I've been doing my best to freak the kids out (in a preschooler-friendly, G-rated way) with these creepy crawlers. My favorite is my friend Harry that I bring along each week. He's a furry little fake spider, with a long tube attached to him, with a bulb at the end that you use to pump air through the tube that makes him jump and wiggle. I try to wear something that allows me to wind the tube through my sleeve and really freak them out when I make him move. But the first week in October I had on short sleeves and I still startled quite a few of my students. Then those very same students were startled the following week when Harry came back, even though they knew how he worked at that point. I love preschoolers! One little boy said, "It's a necklace! It's a necklace. It's a necklace... Right?" Hee.

We read The Itsy Bitsy Spider and The Roly Poly Spider to start off October. The Itsy Bitsy Spider lends itself well to some predicting practice. The kids like to see if they can guess what's going to send the spider flying. And The Roly Poly Spider is all kinds of fun, because it's kind of gross. So we have all kinds of fun ewwwing and ickking at each page turn. The kids all pointed out that this spider was "not a good friend." Indeed! Smart kids!

We reviewed and practiced the sequence of The Itsy Bitsy Spider with a fun activity in which we sent plastic spiders down a piece of a real water spout. This also helps connect this story to real life and make the story concept more concrete for the kids. Most of them ended up saying, "Oh! I have a water spout on my house too!" And then they could actually see just how a big gush of water might wash a spider out of a water spout.

Michael Finnegan

I'm still playing catch-up with keeping you all posted on what we've been up to in class.

At the end of September we wrapped up our Names unit with a book based on one of the most fun, rhyming, names, songs - There Once Was A Man Named Michael Finnegan. There are certain books that are just more fun to read aloud, and this is one of them. I kind of sang the song as I read the text. The kids stayed riveted the entire time. I love those kinds of lessons.

We made Michael Finnegan puppets out of paper plates, complete with whiskers that grow out and in again! So. Much. Fun. We sang the song lots of times as we played with our puppets. What wonderful rhyming practice!

Library Bags

Last month I bought some inexpensive canvas bags from Walmart, along with some puffy paints, and let my kids decorate their own library bags. The idea was to get them a little more excited about choosing their own books at the library since they would have their own personalized bag for carrying them.

It's been working great with my three year old. I bring his bag along on our weekly trips to story time, and he proudly throws it over his shoulder as he browses the book shelves during our visit. He has become more discerning in choosing his books lately. He used to just choose any old book off the shelf. Now he'll carefully examine each cover (the wrong way to judge a book, I know. Hee), and often put the book back on the shelf. Sometimes I'll pull a book off the shelf to suggest to him, but my selections have been getting shot down a lot lately. (In addition to my preschoolers book selections, I usually choose a stack of picture books on my own, that he doesn't get any say in.) Today he chose several books, but was particularly proud of a tiger story that he picked.

My older son has yet to make his bag. He was busy doing something else when we were painting and hasn't taken the time to sit down and paint his yet. My daughter has painted her bag, but has yet to use it. I'm still trying to figure out a good routine for bringing my older two to the library. It's tough to make it work with their school schedule, and the various other activities during the week. And it's even harder to force myself to do it, when it's like pulling teeth to get them to go. My preschooler that I've had since birth loves going to the library though. Tough!

I would love to hear how you work in library visits during the week with your school aged kiddos. Do tell!

We HEART Our Local Library!

My Little Reader and I have had our fair share of library story time disappointment. We did finally fall in love with a librarian at one library, only to have our hearts broken when she left her position at the library. And even though we did love her enthusiastic and engaging read alouds, the craft time following the story reading always seemed a bit lacking in thought and effort.

BUT now we have discovered Ms. Marsha at the library right across town from us, and we LOVE her story hours. She is able to keep her audience captivated (as captivated as you can keep several dozen toddlers and preschoolers) without shouting the words she's reading or rushing through the books. Her storytimes have distinct themes, and the crafts always correlate with the stories, and are well thought out.

I actually suggested to My Little Reader that we go to the story time at the library further away this week, because we had some books on hold, and he staunchly opposed me. He wanted to go to make "crafts" at "the small library." I didn't have the heart to deny his request, so we visited both libraries that day, and he had a ball.

This week there was a food theme to story hour. We missed the beginning (I can never seem to get anywhere on time lately), but made it in time for Marsupial Sue Presents The Runaway Pancake. Check out the pancake My Little Reader made. He insisted on making a face with the fixins, and then ate every last bite of it all.

Yes, You Can Play on the iPad

My kids have a technology addiction. Well, my older ones do. I am completely frustrated by this fact, even though I know I haven't had much influence over this addiction. (From what I hear, they were pretty screen addicted even in their native country.) And for several reasons I won't go into here, screens are just preferable over most other options for my adopted kiddos. And boy, is it ever harder to change an existing habit, or preference in someone, than it is to help guide those habits and preferences right from the beginning.

We don't forbid screen time, but we do try to limit it. It tends to not get turned on during the week because we are so busy with other things, but the weekends require the more heavy monitoring.

But there is one screen in our house that I don't mind the kids using as much; it's our iPad. We just recently purchased an iPad, and one of the main reasons for this purchase was to help make learning more appealing to, and fun for, our kids. We loaded it up with learning games and books and unveiled it.

The kids were initially thrilled about the purchase, but when they discovered that it didn't have all the junk games on it that they love so much on our iPhones (and that don't get to play anymore, because I'm tired of constantly being asked for my phone), it lost a little bit of it's initial appeal.

One of our criticisms of the iPad is that you can't really put restrictions on it, or have separate users like you can on a typical computer. So if my husband or I want to put a junk game on iPad for us, the kids end up seeing it and wanting to play it too. It's kind of maddening.

Despite it's drawbacks, if I can use something they're addicted to (screens), to help foster a love of reading, and to make reading and learning more appealing, I think it is a completely appropriate tool for them to have monitored access to.

Our favorite children's book for the iPad is The Monster At the End of This Book. The Tale of Peter Rabbit probably comes in at a close second. I have included some photos of My Little Reader and his cousins being read to on the iPad by their Papa.

I'm wondering what your thoughts are on iPads and eReaders. Like 'em? Hate 'em? What are your favorite books and educational apps?

The Incredible Book Eating Boy

Last week was the first time I've taught a Literacy Launchpad lesson in over a year (visit my other blog here to get a peek at WHY I've been gone for a while)! It felt WONDERFUL to be back at it. You have no idea how much I was missing it!

We kicked it all off with The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers. It's a fun book, and it works really well to begin a year of incredible reading. The kids all seemed excited about being dubbed "Incredible Book Reading Boys/Girls."

We played a game where we fed Henry's mouth books, and then when that didn't go so well (made our "Henry" sick) we fed his brain books instead. Of course, we first had to create some good books to fill up that brain of his. We ended up with books about dinosaurs, tornados, rainbows, and pumpkins to name a few.

This week it will be fun to see their reaction to getting to go to "reading class" again now that they know what it's all about.

Here are a few photos of us feeding Henry's brain.

Reading Journals

As someone who enjoys reading, and enjoys reading to my children, I cannot believe it has never dawned on me (till now) to be keeping a record of the books we read. As I was driving home from visiting Chicago this weekend, I was thinking about how it would be nice to keep track of the books I have read. I started thinking about what a nice keepsake that might be for my kids and grandkids to have someday (I know I would love to see a journal of what my grandma was reading when she was my age). And then I started thinking about all the books I read with my kids, and all the fun we have talking about these stories and reading them over and over. And I wondered why I haven't been keeping track of all that! I am sad about all the reading memories I have let slip away from us, but I'm excited to go ahead and get going with our reading journaling NOW. Better late than never!

I found lots of suggestions online for what kinds of things you can reflect on and write about in your reading journal, but I plan to keep mine pretty simple. I would like to remember when I read the book, why I read the book, where I read the book (on a plane, vacation, at soccer practice), and then just some general reactions to the book. I would mostly like to use this journal as a way to help record my life. If it evolves into something more than that, fine, but I'm not going to put a lot of pressure on myself to be composing in-depth book reports on every book I read.

As far as journaling what my kids are reading, I plan to keep that simple too. I will follow the same basic guidelines as what I laid out above, but will include what my kids' reactions were, and any activities we may have done following and/or related to the book. I also might include what kinds of curiosity it sparked and what other books it may have led to us reading.

My children can't do much writing yet, so they can't contribute much to the journals yet in that regard, but I might try to have them add some drawings here and there.

I will probably keep it simple with some cheap, basic notebooks, unless I come up with some uber creative idea, or find a reading journal I just can't resist purchasing. You'll see I included a couple photos in this post of some cute ones I found online. You can purchase those HERE and HERE.

Ever kept a reading journal for yourself or your kids? Any tips or ideas to share? Chime in down in the comments! I'm all ears!