Meet Children's Author Laura Numeroff!!

For those of you in the Sacramento area, there will be a chance to meet the author of If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, Laura Numeroff!   She will read her newest book, The Jellybeans and the Big Book Bonanza and others.

This is a free program for the whole family.

What a great way to get your children excited about a book!

Take them to meet a real author!

The program will be at:

The Central Library at 828 I Street, Sacramento.
March 12, 2010
Friday, 6pm
Seating begins at 5:30pm

Rainy Day Book

It is raining AGAIN today!  To make the most of the weather we wrote and illustrated our own rain books.

Skills we worked on:  creativity, writing, and drawing

First we read a few books and poems about rain looking for ways rain was described, what people were wearing, and who was running to get out of the rain.

We stapled a few sheets of paper together and used a gray-blue sheet of construction paper to be the cover. 

We wrote down ten words about rain:  
Splash
Pitter
Patter
Umbrella
Raincoat
Boots
Cat (a cat sitting in the rain)
Home (what our home looks like in the rain
Tree (a tree in the rain)
Run (people running in the rain)

Angel practiced her writing by doing it herself. 

 I made it fun by getting out the gel pens to make her writing sparkly and colorful.

I wrote out the words for Shelli and then she colored her own pictures.

The girls learned to be creative and worked on writing and reading skills in a new and exciting way.

You can order The Rainy Day for $9.99 at Tonya's Books

Fingerpainting Letters!

Another Letter Activity!

Children learn with their whole bodies.  And that includes learning to read and write!

A great way to practice writing is to squirt a bunch of fingerpaints on slick paper and let them practice writing a letter over and over again in the slippery paint.

Supplies:  Fingerpaint (we used blue since younger sister, Shelli, is learning blue this week)
                Fingerpaint paper

Squirt on the fingerpaint and let them go.

Our letter of the week is the Letter S.

Angel wrote an S over and over again.

Shelli wrote an S and then decided to paint her hair and face blue!

Will she learn the color blue this week too??

Letter S - Seashell Painting

This week's theme is Letter S.

Craft:  Seashell Painting

Gather your supplies:

Seashells

watercolors

paintbrush
cup of water

Let them paint the shells any color!

The lighter, brighter colors are prettiest!

Final results-

Beautiful Seashells!

ABC Scavenger Hunt

It is going to rain again this week!  That means more indoor time!  A great activity that is fun and reinforces letter and sound recognition is the great ABC Scavenger Hunt. 

First, place alphabet cards on the floor.

Then have your children run around the house looking for objects that start with the different letters of the alphabet.

We found a monkey puppet and a moose for the letter M.  Shoes, sandals and soccer ball for the letter S.

Shelli found yellow yarn for the letter Y.

This game was fun and the children didn't even know they were learning!  They learned letter and sound recognition while running around looking through their toys.

  Different children need different levels of help.  I would say the sound for Angel and she would brainstorm words that sounded the same. 

I just told Shelli what to go find!

Angel was proud to find 2 rabbits for the letter R.

We went in order from A to Z except when Shelli brought a toy out of order.  Then we would figure out what card her object belonged on!

They had a great time and even enjoyed the clean up.

Teach Your Child to Read in the Kitchen!

Children love to be in the kitchen cooking with you!  The best learning takes place when they are having fun. Follow these great ideas to teach important literacy skills while having fun with your children!

1.  Cook together and chat while you do.  When you cook with children, they learn how to combine ingredients, mix, stir and taste.  But they also learn language.  They use nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs as they talk about what they're doing.

2.  Read a recipe together.  The recipe is made of words and pictures that communicate exactly what to do.  By doing each step in order, the finished product will be delicious!

3.  Plan a grocery list.  Collect any coupons you can find.  Shop together.

4.  Read cookbooks!  Usborne has the best kid-friendly cookbooks such as The Children's World Cookbook,First Cookbook,

The Usborne Children's Cookbook,  Fairy Cooking,and The Usborne Healthy Cookbook.  Check out yesterday's book review on The Usborne Healthy Cookbook.

5.  Make your own menus.

6.  Make place-card labels with everyone's name.

7.  Read food labels and talk about nutrition.

8.  Make at least one meal a day when you can all sit down together and talk about your day.  Conversation builds vocabulary and togetherness.

Create Your Own Take-along Book Bags!

Children learn best when they do an activity that goes along with a story.  Book Bags are very educational and foster imagination, creative thinking and a love of books in children!  The library has book bags for check out and Usborne Books sells Kid Kits.  But you can make your own by combining a book, an activity or two and a few supplies to go with it.


A Book Bag is a great take-along, a handy way to carry literature and related activities wherever busy people go with their children. 

You can make one for your own children or put one together for a birthday or baby shower gift.

Here are some ideas!

The Farmyard Tales Storybook and The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales can be paired with train sets and farm animal toys.  The children can  act out stories such as Pig Gets Stuck, Naughty Sheep and Rusty's Train Ride as you read them aloud.

Another idea is to put together supplies needed to make paper bag puppets and lead the children to make animal puppets that can be used to act out the stories.

Put paper, pens and crayons in a kit with I Can Draw People, I Can Draw Animals or The Big Book of Playtime Activities. Take the bag along with you in the car and use in waiting rooms. Any of these would also make a great birthday gift!

Many of the books can be paired with a stuffed animal for a toddler's birthday or a baby shower gift.  The child can use the stuffed animal for acting out the story as well as a companion to read to! 

There are a lot of cute stuffed dogs and cats that will go with That's Not My Puppy and Find the Kitten.

I found a lot of finger puppets at garage sales that are perfectly paired with The Usborne Book of Fairy Tales.  Children can act out the Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and The Three Bears and Little Red Riding Hood.

Recycling Things to Make & Do is an easy one to pair with supplies!  Just collect paper towel rolls, toilet paper rolls, paper clips, rubber bands, nails, scraps of paper, glue and scissors.  Have everything ready to do the great activities inside! 

That's Not My Angel:  This next one just needs one Angel!  Not every family will be able to put this kid kit together!

Be creative!  Use these ideas to come up with your own Book Bags!  Your children will have fun learning!

www.TonyasBooks.com

www.TonyasBooks.blogspot.com/

Reach For The Stars!

Reach For the Stars!

Do you want to teach your children about community service?

How great would it be to give a brand new book to a child in our community whose family is going through some hard times?

Join our Read-a-thon and READ in order to earn books for your family and brand new books for children in need!

50% of donations collected will go to books as prizes for readers

The other 50% of donations collected will go to books for

Love INC.

• 
  
  When:  March 1- March 12
• 
  
  What:  Commit to read for 30 minutes a day for 10 days and gather pledges
• 
  
  How:  Pick up a pledge sheet at the Open House on February 27 or call Tonya Dirksen
• 
  
  Read and Collect Pledges
• 
  
  Turn in pledge sheets and donations to Tonya Dirksen by Monday, March 15.
• 
  
  Open House Rally
• 
  
  February 27, 11am-1pm (after Book Club 10-11am)

Questions?  Contact Tonya Dirksen (916) 812-2875 or dirksen.tonya@gmail.com 

Is Your Preschooler Keeping a Journal?

     Did you know having your child dictate journal entries or stories to you is an excellent way to teach her important literacy skills?  Writing what your child is thinking is a great way to build self-awareness, express feelings and helps you find out what she is thinking.  This is easy to do once you get into the habit.  Keep a notebook or clipboard handy and ask your child to tell you what she wants you to write.  At first it's hard to get her thinking in terms of something to say, but with practice, it will come easier.

• It can be a sort of diary about what she did that say or what she wants to do another day.  ("We saw a red bird today.  It landed right in front of us."  or "Today I shopped for shoes.")
• It can be what he's thinking about on any topic.  ("Joey has a big dog, but he doesn't have fish.  I think a dog is more fun.")
• It can be what she's feeling that she may not have had a chance to express; any emotion at all is acceptable.  (I really don't like it when I have to make my bed!")
• It can also be a story that he made up.

Whatever it is, you write it exactly as she says it.  Make sure she knows you are writing what she says.  Date it and put it in the same place every time, where it's easy to find.

This helps to develop the understanding that words we say translate into letters on the paper.  Then other people can read what we are saying.

Occasionally, take out all the dictation and read them to him  He will be proud of his "writings" and he will get even more ideas of what he wants to say next time.

Source:  Bev Bos, nationally-recognized expert on Early Childhood Education, turnthepage.com