Before Five in a Row on Goodnight Moon

I suppose my homeschooling style is not turning out to be "unschooler," since I keep buying curricula and my daughter is only eighteen months old. I just adore books, and anything that gives me more ideas for how to introduce and discuss good books is too hard for me to pass up.

My latest curriculum purchase is Before Five in a Row, which suggests activities to accompany twenty-four different children's books. It is geared towards ages two through four, or "two thru four" as the cover reads. I will shrug off the insipid cover art and street sign spelling and move on to the content. The book-related activities comprise the first half of Before Five in a Row. The second half of the book is devoted to more general ideas for educational play.

Goodnight Moon is not the first book listed, but I'm planning to begin there since it is the one we are probably most familiar with. I really am surprised by the ideas I am taking from Before Five in a Row. Why didn't I think of that? Because I am reading this story for the thousandth time from memory while planning a blog post and praying today will be the day Ladybug takes a nap? Yeah, that's why. So a book to help me out a little is welcome.

Ideas from Before Five in A Row that I will be using for Goodnight Moon:

• Point out the colors red, blue, yellow, and green in the illustrations. Ladybug is excited by all things color these days. I don't think I could offer her a piece of candy without a discussion of its color.
• Point out that a painting from The Runaway Bunny can be seen in Goodnight Moon. We have both books; it will be fun if she can see the connection. We can talk about how the same person drew the pictures for both books. Correction, I can talk about that. Maybe she'll understand it.
• Point out all the different animals in the book: Rabbits, kittens, bears, etc.
• Talk about the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle" and the illustration of the cow jumping over the moon. Bug has heard this rhyme. Here's a good chance for me to recite it a few times and connect it to a different book. 
• Point out that the three bears sitting on chairs are the same three bears she knows from the Goldilocks story. 
• Talk about all the different shapes in the illustrations. See if she will point out circles, squares, or triangles. 

Okay, that's a pretty good haul of ideas from three pages of a book I wasn't sure I should buy. However, here are some things Bug is too young for or that I have my doubts about:

• The Bible activities. We are not practicing Christians, and while I want Ladybug to learn biblical stories for cultural literacy, I don't need to connect them to every storybook.
• The discussion of the room appearing darker relative to the sky outside. We can talk about light and dark, but this is a little subtle for her age. Not a fault of the book, we're just not there yet.
•  A memory game where you try to remember the items in the great green room. Again, good activity; Bug is too young.
• Have the child tell a story using the pattern of  Goodnight Moon. For example, say "Hello" to everything in her room.
• Vocabulary lesson explaining the use of the word "great" to mean big. At eighteen months, every spoken word is a vocabulary lesson. Does she need me to explain a specific word? Maybe I need more education on this point.

Based on the Goodnight Moon recommendations, I'm happy I bought Before Five in a Row. There's enough here to keep us busy for a while.

Blogging a Rainy Morning

The weather for yesterday morning was predicted to be nasty thunderstorms. When I woke in the morning things were sunny enough, but by 9:00 am the sky was looking ominously dark. Darn. Our play date to go swimming is cancelled, and the best decision I can see is to spend our day inside. We are sans car around here, and getting caught outside in lightning and thunder is not my idea of a good time.

Rainy days in a small apartment with a small toddler have a way of dragging on and on. So I thought I would blog all the little ways we passed the time. Or at least as many of them as I could remember and document. I should mention that watching the rain became a continual source of delight, and she returned to the window many times throughout the morning.

After breakfast, we sat with crayons and colored. Ladybug is beginning to get the idea. And yes, that is a ladybug magnet on our fridge. Thanks to a sweet aunt for that gift!

Then I thought I would try pointing out colors in Goodnight Moon. I got this idea from Before Five in a Row, which I will do a post on soon. We looked at a few green walls and yellow lamps before Bug requested "plo."

Then it was potty time. She requested the potty by bringing me a baby instruction manual and saying "Ah-pah-pah." The instructions for her own operation got boring quickly, but the Fruitominoes were at hit. Lots of stacking, talking about bananas, and general crazy swiping. Plus, she used the potty. Yay!

Then this cute Christmas ornament kept her busy for quite a while. It's a good thing I'm not organized enough to get all the ornaments back into storage, huh?

Right around now, I start asking myself if it's lunchtime yet. It's not.

I decided yesterday I might like to have Bug's bookcase outside of her room and in our living room, near her toys. This is about as close as you will see me get to a DIY project. So I shuffled some books around and slid the bookcase into its new home.

While moving the bookcase around, I notice that there is some board book repair I've been putting off. By the time toddlerhood is over, I think I should have attained some kind of certificate in board book repair.
Before, in pieces:

And after, all fixed:

At various points while I've been shuffling and taping books, Ladybug has been playing with her fish colors puzzle. I just love this thing, and she's into colors lately. She will take pieces and announce, "Blue fish! Black fish!" For some reason though, green is always blue. Oh well, this is imperfect homeschool.

 

Clock check. It's after 12:00! Lunch, anyone? 

Seasonal Planning - Summer

Ladybug is only 18 months old, but I already do some homeschool planning. While most of it is spent on Amazon wish-listing books and curriculum ideas that will certainly change before Ladybug grows into them, some of it is beneficial to me now. Earlier this year I was inspired by a post on City Kids Homeschooling about homeschooling rhythms. I immediately started working out a similar schedule for my days with Ladybug. I have been updating them at the beginning of a new season, roughly corresponding with our music class. It helps me to take a step back and more deliberately choose how our days will flow. And it really helps me to have something to lean on during my 3:00 pm slump!

This is our summer routine. One of the best things I was able to do was recognize my 3:00 slump and plan to get outside around that time. The weather is usually wonderful, and I can't think of a better season than summer for frequent playground time.

Of course, like anything with a toddler, this routine is flexible. I adapt it to meet our needs. This is the basic outline that serves us well.

A Few Moments for Nesting Bowls

In my mind, Ladybug and I have been working on stacking nested bowls. That is our weekly activity from Slow and Steady: Get Me Ready. What that really means is when she is trying to slide her entire body through the back of a kitchen chair or turn drawers into stairs, I realize I should come up with an activity. "What is our Slow and Steady thing? Oh yeah, the nested bowls," I think to myself. That will buy me five minutes!

I grab the measuring cups and line them up smallest to largest, left to right, as the book instructed me. Then I begin nesting smaller cups in larger cups. I think Ladybug stacked (not nested) a couple of them before realizing that the metal cups make an awesome sound when banged together or on the tile floor. And she was off making music!

This is often how our activities go, and I think it's cool that I can't predict where she will take them. The sixty or so seconds when she is on the task I presented add up when repeated over the week, and I see her engage with the game for longer stretches once she is familiar with it.

So many different strands of learning work into these brief moments of directed activity. One of Ladybug's newest books is The Three Bears by Byron Barton. So we also talked about big, medium, and small nesting bowls, just like Papa, Mama, and Baby Bear have.

This afternoon she climbed eagerly onto the bed and quickly nested the three bowls, then turned her attention elsewhere. Did I mention that this activity was scheduled for an 8 month old? Good thing I've only spent a few moments on it!

Caldecott Board Books

Ladybug loves turning pages in the books we read, and non-board books drive me a little crazy these days. It takes time to peel normal pages apart, and she is always grabbing the entire book and turning to the end if the book is printed on regular paper. I enjoy letting her look through the books without worrying about torn and bent pages. There's a reason board books were invented, and toddlers are that reason.

I also really enjoy the art in Caldecott award winners and am always looking for quality board books to add to our collection. With that in mind, I have created a list of the Caldecott medal or honor books available in board book format:

2009 Medal Winner - The House in the Night
2004 Honor Book - Ella Sarah Gets Dressed
2003 Medal Winner - My Friend Rabbit
2001 Honor Book - Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
2001 Honor Book - Olivia
1999 Honor Book - Snow (Available as a board book October 2012)
1993 Honor Book - Seven Blind Mice
1990 Honor Book - Color Zoo
1985 Honor Book - Have You Seen My Duckling?
1984 Honor Book - Ten, Nine, Eight
1981 Honor Book - Truck
1979 Honor Book - Freight Train
1976 Honor Book - Strega Nona
1963 Medal Winner - The Snowy Day
1961 Honor Book - Inch by Inch (Available as a board book June 2012)
1957 Honor Book - 1 is One
1945 Medal Winner - Prayer for a Child
1944 Honor Book - A Child's Goodnight Book
1943 Medal Winner - The Little House
1940 Honor Book - Madeline

I am excited about several of the books on this list. Some of them I was unaware of, like My Friend Rabbit or A Child's Goodnight Book. Ladybug has started recognizing shapes, and Color Zoo looks like a brilliant way to continue talking about them. 1 is One is a counting book written in rhyme, complete with pretty pastoral illustrations. Not every board book is an appropriate read-aloud for a young toddler. I know that The Little House has a lot of text that Ladybug probably wouldn't sit through. But she has surprised me in the past with how quickly she accepts longer stories. I'm sure we'll be reading them soon.

On Ladybug's Bookshelf:

Gorgeous woodcut illustrations with pleasant, simple text. This makes a great bedtime story. At first I was underwhelmed by the prose, but it has grown on me. My favorite page reads, "On the moon's face shines the sun," and is illustrated with radiant beams streaming from the sun. Ladybug always strokes the sunbeams. I imagine that eventually I will teach her that line is not only poetic, but scientifically accurate. The illustrations are full of familiar, everyday objects to point out. Bonus: Van Gogh's Starry Night hangs on the wall in child's bedroom.

Loving Language and Corduroy

Ladybug and I read together all the time, and she is adamant about her role of turning the pages. Up until recently, it has taken her a little time to get used to a new book. She might have lost interest before the story was over, or demanded to flip through the pages more quickly. As she became familiar with the book's pictures and plot, her attention span increased. This process took a little time, and I found myself adding new books to our collection at a rate of about four per month.

Last week she startled me by developing a stronger thirst for language. I noticed it first when Jamberry became an instant favorite, no breaking-in time needed. She requested the book constantly, and I must have read it a dozen times a day. She honed her usage of the word no to reject other books in favor of Jamberry. The last page of the book sends her into a fit of giggles that warm my heart.

Now her book requests have ramped up. The other day she brought me ten books in a row. It looks like this: Toddler approaches, book in hand, and pleads, "Dee! Dee!" Mommy reads book. Toddler slides off Mommy's lap to fetch another book. Repeat. I worked out a system where I fold one diaper in between each reading so I can still get the laundry put away.

One of the books Ladybug pulled into our fetch and read rotation is Corduroy. I bought this one several months back, not realizing how much text it has. I introduced it to her by summarizing pages, just talking about the pictures, and only getting through half of the story before her interest was gone. Back then I put the book aside, not wanting to annoy and overwhelm her with something so long. She's a tiny kiddo, after all.

Well, that concern has passed, because Corduroy is now the #1 book in our household. Ladybug points at me when we read about Lisa's mommy. She grins in anticipation before the "Pop!" as Corduroy pulls the button off the mattress and points to her own arms as we read how Lisa carried Corduroy. She hums, "Hommmm," after Corduroy declares that he has always wanted a home.

Between the massive number of book requests and absorption of a longer storybook, I can see that the demand for more involved stories is high. I'm excited! I have ordered Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Madeline. It can only get more fun from here.

Spanish for My Toddler - The Background

I would love for Ladybug to learn Spanish. What a great opportunity we have to teach her a second language now, while her language acquisition is so rapid. We are not a Spanish speaking household, and we don't have any Latin heritage. I am simply one of those people who believes that Americans don't do a good job learning foreign languages and that we'd be better neighbors and thinkers if we did.

So here's the rub. Despite my noble belief that Americans should learn more foreign languages, I don't speak one. I have under my belt one year of college French and one continuing ed. Spanish class, taken as part of my senior year of high school. This is a perfect example of a time when I want my daughter's education to be superior to my own. But I also need to fess up and face my fears. I feel utterly, nakedly, stupid when limping along in a foreign language. I realize that I am not alone and that many (most?) people feel this way. That realization is no comfort, and I have shied away from serious language study as a result.

A quick web search tells me that Ladybug is not going to learn a second language if she isn't speaking it regularly with a real human being, preferably a parent. I am in luck! While I have a lame track record with language, my husband is a super-star. He has done serious dabbling in Italian, Japanese, Arabic, French, German, and Latin. He has done more than dabble in Spanish and is at a respectable conversational level. He can speak with fluent speakers and got by just fine in Brazil on the similarities between Portuguese and Spanish.

Okay, Daddy will teach her Spanish then, right? Well, it turns out that Daddy is also a "lazy bum" who is working nonstop to finish his Ph.D. When that is done, he'll be working full time to support his family, so his wife can stay home and teach their child. It is a shame that I married such an unsupportive slacker, but I have accepted my lot in life.

Seriously though, I believe that if a project is important to me, it's my job to do the work. My husband does read to Ladybug in Spanish, but I am with her full time, and I am taking on the bulk of the homeschool instruction. Here is a great opportunity for me to improve myself, triumph over a fear, and benefit my child. Let's learn Spanish!

I love how motherhood inspires me to be my best.