We Love to Read!

A few days ago a friend of mine asked me how I get my kids to be so good with books. Looking back, I should have clarified if she was asking how I get them to not rip them appart or if she was asking how I get them to sit and listen to a whole book. Regardless the answers are the same.

How I foster a love of books and reading:

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  I read, read, read. They see me enjoying reading. They see me taking good care of my books. Kids don't miss much, they notice everything!


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  We read together. Every. Day. We always read at bedtime, but we also read whenever we want.


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  My kids get books as gifts. Giving books as gifts isn't necessary, but it does somehow make books extra special. It is like giving them a love of reading, piece by piece.


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  I let them hold, touch, and handle books from a very young age. Age appropriate books of course!


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  Library visits. Building a home library isn't cheap, but books from the public library can be borrowed for free! Besides, then you can have a pre-view and know what books you want to own.


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  When it is time to read, I let them pick the book. I also let them turn pages. I think this is pretty normal, but hey, it is something that I do that contributes to how my kids are with books.


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  I don't worry so much about getting to the end of a book. It isn't about getting to the end. This is especially the case early on. Reading can be an amazing tool for increasing a child's attention span, but not if you force them to always make it to the end of a book. If my kids lose interest in a book and we are only 4 pages in, so what? We might put the book down and start some other book, or we might start just looking at the pictures. Being able to listen to a whole book comes later.

One last thing before this post is done. I just want to say how super cute my Adelle is with books! She loves them. I often catch her sitting and 'reading' a book. More often however she will get a book, find me, sit me down, climb on my lap and have me read to her. She does this at least 8-10 times every day.

There is no limit to where you can go when you are hooked on books!

We are Gamers

One day I came into the kitchen after putting my baby to bed to find my toddler sitting at the table with Settlers of Catan. He looked up and me and asked me very politely to play a game with him. Now, I could have told him no or that we needed to pick a different game that he could play. But instead I sat down and said ‘ok’ and figured out a way to play with him. He knows that his daddy and I love to play games. So, now we play a game together almost every time my baby takes a nap. It doesn’t matter that we aren’t playing the games ‘the right way’. What matters is that we are having special just him and me time. Since I take the time to play adult games with him he doesn’t try to sneak and play with them while I am not looking and lose pieces. Yeah, we play Hi Ho Cherry-O and Memory now and then, but we play mommy’s games too.

Adapting games to play with your preschooler:

Othello-Practice taking turns placing the pieces on the board. Arrange the pieces into shapes, letters, or numbers. Practice simple patterns.

Uno (at our house we have uno attack!)- Take turns taking cards. Practice identifying numbers and colors. When the deck is gone sort the cards into piles according to color. When your child has mastered sorting by color try sorting by number.

Dice games (such as Yahtzee)- Practice counting and numbers! Count the dice, count the dots, match up dice with the same number facing up, how many times you roll, etc. Also practice fine motor skills by stacking the dice, see how many you can stack up!

Settlers of Catan- Let your preschooler practice fitting the pieces together. Build designs, patterns, letters, and numbers with the little wooden pieces. I don’t get out all of the many parts of the game, but my preschooler loves to feel like he is playing by just using parts of the game. He can’t tell that he is only playing part of the game!

Scrabble- Practice identifying letters. We like to ‘match up’ I will say something like “I found an A, can you find another A?” We also like to add in letter sounds now and then. For example I might say “Look D for d-d-d-Daddy! The sound for D is d-uh.” For older preschoolers you can also start building words.

Rummikub- Identify the different numbers. Sort numbers and colors.

Monkey Bread

I had an 'A-Ha' moment today. I have always wondered why Monkey Bread is called Monkey Bread. Well, one look at Adelle while she was eating Monkey Bread solved the mystery.

And a cute little monkey she is too!

For Cutes

Today was the first time I tried to put Adelle's hair in anything. She looks good in pig tails don't you think? I sure do. One day in the next year I may get to use some of the super cute hair clips that I have made for her.