I Love To Read Month
This month is "I Love To Read" month at O's daycare. To emphasize the point, they are asking parents to come in and read to the kids. One of my super-secret wishes is to be a children's storyteller in libraries, because, and you may not know this, I'm AWESOME at it. I am pretty good at voices, I enunciate and use all my articulators, and I help make the story interesting. I can't tell my own stories to save my life, but someone else's words, shoot, give 'em to me and I'll make them magic. Especially if they're of the rhyming variety.
I read one of Oliver's all-time favorite stories at daycare last week: The Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle (best name ever). It went over like gangbusters. I asked Ms. Kenzie if there were any rules and she said, "Just keep them engaged." I think I did well in that department!
(Let me just point out the high level of sarcasm I injected into that last statement. This is coming from the same person who confused her left from her right no less than three times in the last two days. My husband suggested that I tattoo "L" and "R" on the appropriate thumbs, but allowed that he would have to be the one to tell the tattoo artist which thumbs on which to put them.)
The point is, lovelies, while every month should be I Love To Read month because young brains should learn about the joys of entering other worlds, I'm joining with my son's daycare to encourage reading in our house whenever possible. We have always read in the morning before daycare, all the time on the weekends and before bed. I plan on continuing this until my son won't let me in his bedroom any longer. Do the same! Let's raise a generation who understands the difference between your and you're, there, their and they're and effect and affect. Let's raise a generation who appreciate Jane Austen, Samuel Beckett and George Orwell and everyone else. Let's raise a generation who don't think "It was the best of times" comes from a Hallmark card.
You with me? Let's read! What are your children's favorite books? What books do you remember reading as a child?
I read one of Oliver's all-time favorite stories at daycare last week: The Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle (best name ever). It went over like gangbusters. I asked Ms. Kenzie if there were any rules and she said, "Just keep them engaged." I think I did well in that department!
Ollie frigging LOVES to read. Every chance he gets, he's nabbing a book and crawling into the nearest lap he can find. Sometimes he climbs up to snatch the big blanket off the top of the couch and hands it to you to drape over him as you snuggle up to read the latest Elmo. I try to teach my son a lot, but for him to grab onto my favorite pasttime is incredibly rewarding. Maybe even more so than learning how to peel a banana the right way (from the bottom) or blowing his nose!
His favorite books right now, along with the one previously mentioned, are:
- Little Blue Truck Leads the Way, by Alice Schertle. He likes to sit down and read these Little Blue Truck books on his own - he beeps when the truck beeps, makes the animal noises and even yells "'OP!" when the truck yells "Stop!"
- Barnyard Dance! by Sandra Boynton. Come on, the Boynton books are hilarious, fun and easy to act out. This one has us literally stomping, clapping, bowing, mooing and dancing on our seats.
- Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury. A beautiful reminder of acceptance and inclusion...and also fun to stop and count fingers and toes!
- Big Red Barn, by Margaret Wise Brown. This is a must-have for kids who are latching on to farm animals but want to see more real-to-life illustrations.
- The Teddy Bear's Picnic, song by Jerry Garcia and David Grisman and illustrated by Bruce Whatley. I mean, it's all hippie and woodstocky, but it's fun to march around like the teddy bears and sing along.
- Good Night Minnesota, by Adam Gamble. One of the first books given to little Pipsqueak by the Twin Cities contingent.
- Old MacDonald Had A Farm, illustrated by Wendy Straw. Obviously a crowd pleaser in any form, and this is a favorite song of O's. He likes to pick the animal we sing about and even says the corresponding noise when I sing, "With a - here" "and a - there" "here a -" "there a -" "everywhere a - ."
- What Shall We Do with the Boo-Hoo Baby? by Cressida Cowell and Ingrid Godon. An early fave when O was starting to mimic. Now it's turned into, "What did the baby say?" and O squints up his eyes, takes his ever-present thumb out of his mouth and says "Oo-ooo!" as if he's crying.
- Dinosaur Dig! by Penny Dale. This is a new one and I can't say I totally get behind the idea of 10 dinosaurs constructing a giant cement swimming pool together, but I'm the only one who has to sort fact from fiction in this scenario, I guess.
- The Brown Bear and Polar Bear companion books by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle. I mean, kind of duh. This all started when one of our friends, Sara, published a video on Facebook of her son reading the book from start to finish. Life goal, Sara.
- Little Miss Austen's Pride and Prejudice, by Jennifer Adams. I think O likes this counting book because I always read it in my best British accent. Which isn't good at all, but we have fun.
(Let me just point out the high level of sarcasm I injected into that last statement. This is coming from the same person who confused her left from her right no less than three times in the last two days. My husband suggested that I tattoo "L" and "R" on the appropriate thumbs, but allowed that he would have to be the one to tell the tattoo artist which thumbs on which to put them.)
The point is, lovelies, while every month should be I Love To Read month because young brains should learn about the joys of entering other worlds, I'm joining with my son's daycare to encourage reading in our house whenever possible. We have always read in the morning before daycare, all the time on the weekends and before bed. I plan on continuing this until my son won't let me in his bedroom any longer. Do the same! Let's raise a generation who understands the difference between your and you're, there, their and they're and effect and affect. Let's raise a generation who appreciate Jane Austen, Samuel Beckett and George Orwell and everyone else. Let's raise a generation who don't think "It was the best of times" comes from a Hallmark card.
You with me? Let's read! What are your children's favorite books? What books do you remember reading as a child?
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