Baby Reference Library

We're learning vocabulary at a furious pace around here (walrus!) so we've been doing a lot of exploration of J's various "baby reference books." Baby grunts and points, and mommy names and explains. Since many of these books are either oversize or just chunky, I pulled them all out tonight and gave them their very own basket, which clears out some room on the storybook shelves.

Wednesday

Settling into a nice schedule of hitting the bookstore mid-week each week, which seems to keep me out of too much trouble! Today there were lots of moving-parts books that were in fabulous condition but for one missing part:

• CAT and DOG by Matthew Van Fleet both have lots of push and pull and pop-up pages. DOG is missing one pop-up, but other than they are in great shape and both have tons of great photos of different dog and cat breeds.
• The oversize photo-illustrated DK Flip-Flap and Big Book of Things That Go books are both in great shape, but for a missing wheel on the Flip-Flap book and a detached page in Things That Go. I taped the page back in and I doubt the missing wheel will ever even be noticed. 
• LITTLE GOLDEN BOOKS: Tootle (much more of an early reader but I love Tibor Gergley so I couldn't resist) and The Shy Little Kitten (Jackson thought the mole was wondrous and strange).
• PRESCHOOL-AGE STUFF: Brain Quest Bathtime (for ages three to five) and How Do Dinosaurs Clean Up Their Rooms? by Yolen & Teague.
• POST-APOCALYPTIC STOCKPILE: As a general rule I don't graze too far out of the children's section, for the safety and well-being of my pocketbook, but this Hammond Atlas of United States History was just sitting there alone on a shelf calling to me. It will be perfect for when I homeschool AP U.S. History after the apocalypse--the pre-Revolutionary/early Federal period and WWII maps look especially useful. Hee.

We also hit the Westchester Library every-other-Wednesday storytime for the first time today, and it was fantastic. Lots of kids from age 0 to about 4 or 5, and the librarian did a wonderful job. There was a letter of the week, three books, a narrated story told with felt people illustrations, lots of physical songs and then a playtime afterward. Jackson's attention span is still all over the place, but he liked the other kids (and their stuff), so I think we'll probably make it a regular event along with the farmer's market and the bookstore.

Library Book of the Week: Llama Llama Red Pajama

I picked up Llama Llama Red Pajama at the library last week and it is easily Jackson's favorite book since, well, everything by Leslie Patricelli. J made me read Llama Llama Red Pajama to him about 12 times in a row today and his enthusiasm for the story is endearing and hilarious. He repeats the last word of several of the stanzas (including "moan..." and "The end."), he looks extremely concerned when Baby Llama is having his meltdown (the little guy's eyes get all big and fearful), and he laughs like a bandit when Mama Llama says "tizzy."

Regarding other library books we read this week, Jackson gave middling reviews to Clifford, the Big Red Dog, while Dr. Suess' My Many-Colored Days was a definite thumbs-down (but Mama Llama liked it quite well thank you).

On Monday we'll visit the Brentwood Branch of the LAPL to look for Richard Scarry's Best ABC Video Ever and Richard Scarry's Best Counting Video Ever, which were recommended by someone on the Well-Trained Mind forums. For now Jackson's TV is restricted to Baby Signing Time! once a day (which he loves) or regular Signing Time! (which he pretty much refuses to watch, although he does love Leah and learned her name sign today), but he basically seems to not yet have the attention span for a regular TV show, so this hunt for Richard Scarry videos is more of a research mission on my part.

Overall, our curriculum (at 16 months) is lots and lots of read-alouds, including ideally a daily poem or two from Sing a Song of Popcorn, a daily reading from D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths*, some outside time, some music either in the car or at mealtime, and some attempt at taking about colors, numbers, shapes or letters, be that in the form of a shape sorter toy, counting while eating, reading an alphabet book or talking about colors.

Jackson just learned the sign for the word color, but I'm not sure he really gets the concept of colors yet. I'm hoping to establish a more regular schedule for playdates and "field trip" days so we can have both have some structure, and once that's in place, hopefully draw more activities from First Art, that Gymboree book and Teaching Montessori in the Home: Preschool Years, all of which I still need to, ahem, read.

*We're up to the story of Cadmus and the founding of Thebes. I try to get in at least a fragment of a story when I bring this book down, but Jackson really just likes to look at the pictures of his favorite "moo" (page 108, Zeus disguised as a white cow so he can carry off Europa) and his favorite "nay-nay" (page 128, Bellerophon fighting monsters from the back of Pegasus). Before D'Aulaire's I read him Aesop's Fables and once we're done we'll start working through the Golden Bible.

Today's Treasures from the Used Bookstore: Best Richard Scarry Day Ever!

Today was a lot of shopping after being out of town visiting relatives earlier in the week. Trader Joe's (we were out of Joe's O's, gasp!), Costco (diapers, wipes, toilet paper, and I indulged in the My First Bob Books boxed set for $10) and of course the used bookstore. (Jackson fell asleep in the carseat somewhere between the bookstore and Costco, so I just parked under a Costco tree, rolled the windows down and joined him for some good sleepin'!)

• By the grace of Used Book Providence, there were two brand-new Richard Scarry hardcovers at the bookstore: Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever and Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy Town. Both still have their price tags from Children's Book World and appear to be unread. Both my husband and I made our parents read various Richard Scarry books a billion times over, so it's wonderful to have these in the house for Jackson. Hopefully he'll take to them as much as we did. (Turnabout is fair play!) P.S. Did you know that in 1963 Richard Scarry illustrated an edition of the fables of La Fontaine?
• Plus: Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book; the full version of Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb (the abridged board book is one of our absolute faves); a Little Golden Book called The Little Red Caboose that on one hand is delightfully illustrated by Tibor Gergley and on the other hand contains a problematic 1950s-era politically incorrect page of generic Native Americans cavorting in fairly stereotypical ways (ugh, but then again, I forgave Mary Ann Hoberman for her fake "Mohee" Indians so...); Father Bear Comes Home, one of the Little Bear easy readers (written by Else Holmelund Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak); a board edition of Eric Carle's Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?; DK Lift-the-Flap Things That Go (we are all about trucks right now); Museum Shapes (love it and want to collect the others: Museum ABC, Museum 123, Museum Colors); the Caldecott Honor Book King Bidgood's in the Bathtub, written by Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood; a Bright and Early Book I hadn't seen before called Wings on Things by Marc Brown (I'm living with the anti-honeybee propaganda for now but it irks!); a cute animal board book called I Love My Daddy Because...; and a lovely lyrical sounds-of-the-seasons book published in the UK called Listen, Listen, written by Phillis Gershator, illustrated by Allison Jay.)

Ah, the baby wakes, I must go!

Creating a Math-Rich Environment

This house is littered with the alphabet, but after I found a thread on WTM about creating a "math-rich environment," I realized I need to up my game on math! We have geometric solids and gazillions of blocks in the toy box, plus Jackson's rubber play mat is shapes instead of letters, the Groovie Blocks are at grandma and grandpa's house, and I have sets of Cuisenaire rods and pattern blocks in the garage. (They're still in the garage because Jackson still puts a lot of random stuff in his mouth!)

Now, I count with him all the time, we do blocks and talk about shapes, and that's probably all he needs at this point, but in anticipation of the future, I am coveting magnetic numbers, this "chunky" numbers puzzle, numbers dominoes, regular dominoes and maybe this math dice game for a few years from now, plus from RightStart: the abacus, the geoboards and the fraction puzzle. I think I can make some of this stuff, but for the time being: "How many segments are in this orange? Let's count! 1, 2, 3..."

Today's Educational Enrichment Product: Balls!

Balls! OK, our new outdoor playground balls are not as adorable as the Crocodile Creek ones pictured here, but I did get three rubber balls for Jackson to use in the backyard and they are a huge hit. I got a set of two, one red and one great, that are both about the size of his head, and then there's a big one that's "tie-dye" style. He can barely get his arms around the big one but it's adorable to watch him try. He's having a blast chasing them, making them bounce and learning how to play catch. Truth be told, when I threw him the ball to "catch" it hit him in the head about 50 percent of the time, but from his catbird seat at the top of the slide he actually managed to get his hands on them a couple of times. Definitely will add more fun outdoor basics like this in the coming months. Thinking one of those tunnel things might be fun, and I'm tempted to figure out some kind of ball pit or sandbox.

What Is Precious, or Why I'm Planning for a Post-Apocalyptic Home School

Just FYI, the title of this blog is at least partially inspired by the 2010 Denzel Washington movie The Book of Eli. If you haven't seen it yet and you stumble across it on Netflix or DirecTV, it's worth a watch. It's not great, but it's very very interesting.


We actually quote this movie all the time in our house, specifically Eli's line about the time before: "People had more than they needed. We had no idea what was precious and what wasn't. We threw away things people kill each other for now."