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!

End of Summer Literacy Fun

My first summer with three kids was... interesting. I had lofty plans for activities and learning, but most of them didn't happen. We did have fun celebrating summer today though with some reading and a little field trip.

We got a couple books from the library about ice cream, and read a little on the subject before we headed out to visit our local dairy plant.

I must admit, we were a bit disappointed in our visit to the dairy plant. There was no actual tour. Their idea of a "tour" was to let us watch a video on how they make their various dairy products. Kind of lame.

But we took a picture with a (fake) cow!

And we got free ice cream! So it wasn't a total bust. Turns out they don't even make ice cream at the plant we visit. They make it in Chattanooga.

Anyhow, we decided to go up to the store and buy some rock salt so we could make ice cream ourselves. We found directions online for making ice cream without an ice cream maker (because we don't have one), using just ziploc baggies, rock salt, and then stuff pretty much everybody has around the kitchen (ice cubes, milk, sugar, and vanilla). I was pretty skeptical as to whether this was actually going to work or not, but it did! I ended up doing all the shaking, because the bags were too heavy for the three year old and my two big kids were busy teaching themselves the Cha-Cha Slide (don't ask). It only took five minutes though! And it was really yummy! Downside: It didn't make very much, and it melted REALLY fast.

Here's Isaac giving a "thumbs up" (we'll have to work on that) for his ice cream.

Other books about ice cream:

The Ice Cream King by Steve Metzger and Julie Downing

I Am An Ice Cream Truck by Ace Landers

Milk to Ice Cream by Inez Snyder

Wemberly's Ice Cream Star by Kevin Henkes

I Like Ice Cream by Robin Pickering

Should I Share My Ice Cream by Mo Willems

From Cow to Ice Cream by Bertram T. Knight

Ice Cream by Elisha Cooper

Yummy Ice Cream: A Book About Sharing by Emma Quay and Anna

Guilty Confession of A Literacy Teacher:

None of my kids can read.

O.K. so one of them is only three, and the other two have only just recently moved to this country (from Ethiopia) and learned English. But in all honesty, I feel they should all be closer to reading than they are. My oldest daughter really wants to read and has a lot of anxiety about starting school again next month because she can't read. Problem is, she wants me to like zap her with the power to read and just be done with it like that. She is not very motivated to put the work in to actually figuring it out with me. She has actually told me numerous times that her brain is broken and she can't learn how to read.

Guilty confession number 2: I have actually considered hiring a tutor to teach my daughter to read.

I can't tell you how many people have told me how great I'm going to be at teaching my kids English, and teaching then how to read. I should be, right? I mean, heck, I'm the "Literacy Launchpad Lady" for crying out loud! But, my forte is more getting kids prepped for learning to read, and instilling motivation in them. I work with preschoolers who aren't at the actual reading stage yet. So when you put me and my daughter together, who already struggle to connect just as a mother and daughter, add the stress of learning to read (with all the anxiety surrounding it on my daughter's part), add a traumatized brain that struggles to retain info, add two brothers who have to be up in everybody's business all the time, and add the fatigue from all our summer activities... it's just tough!

Right now we're still just working on letter sounds. I think she finally has the letter names down. Progress! But yes, very slow progress.

Fumbling Through Summer

Forgive me for my absence here. I'm new to the whole being a mom of three kids over summer break thing. It's time consuming. I'll be back. Promise!

Summer Reading Programs and Summer Homeschooling

Summer is totally kicking my butt this year. Hence my lack of posts lately.

Took my kids up to one of our local libraries last week to get them signed up for the summer reading program. I was a bit disappointed. I signed them up as pre-readers since that's what they are. But I'm thinking I may have to go and see if they'll make an exception for us, and let them do the regular reading program. The pre-readers are given these little Bingo-type cards with various different activities on them and they have to cross 10 off to win their first prize, and then another 10 to get their second. The activities are so simple, and my kids are so eager to get their prize, that they had 10 crossed off in less than a week. At this rate, they'll have completed the entire summer reading program in less than three weeks. And it really isn't challenging them at all.

In other news, we are trying to start some reading instruction this summer (squeezing our lessons in between ESL summer school and swimming at the pool). We haven't made much progress yet. Much of the time I feel like I'm banging my head against a wall. It's tough when you've got one that is so easily discouraged, but yet puts hardly any effort into even TRYING.

Anybody else participating in a summer reading program with their kids? How are you liking it?