Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons

I came across these books by Amy Krouse Rosenthal in my local library. They are wonderful for teaching children the meaning of character traits in a way they can easily relate. These books are on my wish list for my boys. They'd make really great gifts for others as well.

The first book Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons teaches traits through the activity of making and eating cookies. Here are a few of my favorites:

"COOPERATE means, How about you add the chips while I stir?

PROUD means, My chin is high, and I sure do like the way my cookies turned out.

MODEST means you don't run around telling everyone you make the best cookies, even if
you know it to be true.

RESPECT means offering the very first cookie to your grandmother.

PESSIMISTIC means, How awful, how absolutely dreadful - I only have half my
cookie left.

OPTIMISTIC means, This is great - I still have half my cookie left.

REGRET means, I really wish I didn't eat so many cookies."


Christmas Cookies: Bite-Size Holiday Lessons just came into publication this fall and explains character traits in the same simple-to-understand style.

"DISAPPOINTED means, I tried to make it look like a star, but it didn't turn out at all the
way I expected.

APPRECIATIVE means, Thank you so so much for taking the time to bake with me.

CHARITABLE means setting a big batch aside to give to people who maybe don't have any
cookies at all.

MODERATION means at the party not having twenty cookies, and not having zero cookies,
but having just enough cookies.

FRUSTRATED means, I can't believe we burned them again!

PERSEVERANCE means, We tried and tried and tried, and we finally made the perfect
not-burned batch.

THOUGHTFUL means, Let's give some to our neighbor!"

Books! Books! Books!

I love buying books for my boys. I have a long list of books I'd like to purchase from a variety of subjects...but this shopping spree was an effort to help us with our study of Fine Arts.

For Art this year, I am using How to Teach Art to Children published by Evan-Moor. The first few lessons have been about Line - recognizing and drawing vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines in varying widths thick, thin and dotted. After each lesson, we've looked around our house to find the different lines and follow that up by looking at examples of artwork through our borrowed library books Museum ABC, Museum Shapes and Museum 123 (all published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art). I love these books because they are appropriate for ANY age - everyone in our family can look at these books and come away a little more knowledgeable. They were number one on my shopping list and I'm sure the other patrons of the library will be thankful that I'm not holding those copies hostage any longer.

Can You Find It? is a search and find book using art work. Elijah and Luke love these types of books, so that was a extra purchase. It's turn out to be a treasure as well.

I am planning to study a different artist each month. I found Discovering Great Artists many months back, but wasn't sure about it. Then I happened upon a blogging mom who is using it with her little ones and I loved the projects her children were doing. Check out this Van Gogh project that finally sold me. Maybe it's just because I love sunflowers...

The rest of the stack is for Music. Both Elijah and Luke will be taking piano lesson together with Miss June. They will focus on the piano as the main instrument, but will try a variety of rhythm instruments and music "play." I am hoping to teach them about the different sections of the orchestra and listen to a variety of classical musicians. Again, I've borrowed these Classical Kids CDs from our library and love them. We occasionally watch Little Einsteins on TV and the first time I put in one of the new CDs, Elijah said, "Hey, I like this music...it's from Little Einsteins!" He then proceeded to "fly" in his rocket around the house, joined within seconds by his brothers, humming along with the music.

This treasures below are a stack of well loved books I picked at my local library sale. My favorite of the bunch is Jamberry. I love the rollicking flow of the words about a little boy and a bear picking berries for jam...

"One berry

Two berry

Pick me a blueberry...

Trainberry

Trackberry

Clickety-clackberry...

Raspberry

Jazzberry

Razzamatazzberry

Berryband

Merryband

Jamming in Berryland..."

Of course, you can't beat classics like Madeline and Babar, too! My only problem now...my only problem always is...I NEED MORE BOOK SHELVES!

Catch the Reading Bug

Sign up for the summer reading program "Catch the Reading Bug" has begun. Yeah, for the extra incentive to read books over the summer...not that it is hard to convince Elijah to read, but he loves the thrill of getting prizes for reading. That's probably not happening any other time around our house! Coinciding with this event, we decided that Eli could get his own library card. Yesterday, we headed down the road to our library and got it all taken care of. I told Elijah that he would be responsible to check out his summer reading book on his card and I would keep the rest of our items on my card for the summer, so he could practice being responsible for one item at a time. He looked at me thoughtfully and said, "Since I'm old enough to have a library card, can I have a cell phone, too?" WHAT???!!! No way!!! He giggled for atleast a half hour about getting his own phone...

I must admit, I'm not worried about him losing books or accumulating fines, etc. because I am pretty strict about where we keep our library books and besides, I work at the library. I don't think there is a week that goes by that I'm not renewing a book or eliminating a small fine or two. It's one of the perks of the job...although I am careful not to abuse it!

Luke was bummed that he isn't old enough to sign up for the reading program, so we decided to do our own version at home with prizes and all! Luke chose Museum ABC by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's more than an alphabet book...it has four images from four distinct works of art all focused on the same subject. In the back, you can find information on the work of art and its creator.

Elijah first task was to decorate a bookmark to hang in the children's room and choose a book to read. He chose Father Bear Comes Home by Else Holmelund Minarik. When we got home, he immediately wanted to read his book (after finding his wallet from the costume box for his library card...). Once he started reading, I was thoroughly impressed...but then it struck me...the boys listen to Little Bear stories on audio CD often and Elijah has an excellent auditory memory. The clincher was when he repeated the title after me and added "by Else Holmelund Minarik" in the same voice as the storyteller. Hmmm...

I know he needed to think about some of the words, but is it considered cheating if he has the stories memorized that he is suppose to be reading?