O Holy Night

It is Christmas Eve. Isaac is in bed, the presents are under the tree, Santa's cookies have been baked (and eaten), and Mom and Dad are settling in for what will probably be a short winter's nap.

The Christmas books came out of the boxes with the Christmas decorations a few weeks ago. We have read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Night before Christmas, and Bear Stays Up for Christmas, among others over the past few days.

This evening after attending a beautiful Christmas Eve service at our church, going out for dinner, discovering that all of the grocery stores closed at 8:00 (including Walmart, if you can believe it), and preparing Santa's treats, Isaac finally went to bed after threats of "Santa will fly right over our house if you are still awake." But not, of course, without stories.

Instead of a repeat of one of the myriad Christmas books we own, I was compelled to stay with the real message of the evening during story time. I pulled Isaac's Bible off of the shelf and opened to the Christmas story. We read about Gabriel appearing to Mary, Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus, the heavenly host of angels bringing the news to the shepherds, and the Wise Men traveling to find the new King.

Isaac will wake up thinking about what Santa left for him, but he went to sleep with the story of the first Christmas echoing in his head.

Merry Christmas and sweet dreams.

The Culmination of an Idea

A few months ago I wrote about the book Why? by Lila Prap. I mentioned a project idea that I had and I actually implemented it this year with my 4th grade students. Since this blog was where the thought first sprouted I thought I would share the results.

The students I worked with loved the book. Reading it out loud to the classes was one of my favorite experiences so far this school year. Shared laughter between teachers and students can be a rare experience and when it happens I savor it.

The classes I worked with created projects in different formats using some new online tools that I began playing with this year. Their products are fun and creative. Just thought I would brag on my students a bit.

Here they are.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's . . .

We have been going to the library faithfully, though I am not keeping up with my goal of posting once a week. We read faithfully each night and record one book on Isaac's reading log, but there are many nights that we are so tired when we are done that I cannot remember what we have read. When I asked Matt just now if there were any books that I should blog about, neither of us could think of one. Our brains are too tired.

Part of our nightly reading is comprised of phonics readers to help Isaac practice his sight words. Teaching a child to read, or helping him learn to read, is a frustrating process. How many times will he look at the word "the" before he will remember it? But we have noticed progress and Isaac feels an obvious sense of accomplishment when we work through the reader and he has read all of the words.

I have been amazed and pleased at Isaac's work ethic since he started kindergarten. Doing his homework has not been the daily battle that I feared it would be. He actually looks forward to doing it each afternoon. And, even though he is tired at night when we work on his reading, he pays attention and stays focused. School has been an adjustment, but so far he is enjoying it.

In addition to the phonics readers that we read each night, I am trying to work on reading some short chapter books. The teacher assistant in his class reads them Junie B. Jones books, but at home we are starting with Superman chapter books. Some nights Isaac is excited to read another chapter. Other nights, he prefers to stick with picture books. Reading the chapter books over multiple nights helps him develop his sense of story (beginning, middle and end) and memory by reviewing what has already happened in the book. They are short enough that we can get through one in just a few days. And they will be good practice for the longer books that I want to read with him later.

Fall is one of my favorite seasons and some of my favorite children's books are fall books. I will try to remember what they are when my brain is more awake and share them here in the next few weeks.

No Sleeping 'Till Your Homework's Done

We have discovered that with kindergarten comes homework, at least at Isaac's school. I understand that other schools have different practices and not all homework is created equal. But I will not dwell on how I feel about Isaac's homework here, except to say that part of his daily homework is to read for 15 minutes. We are supposed to write down the name of one book we read during this time on a reading log each night. The goal is for each student to turn in one complete log (20 books) each quarter (9 school weeks).

I do not like to call reading "homework." We have been reading to Isaac since he was an infant and it is a rare night that passes by that we do not read at least one story, most nights we read five. In our house reading is not homework, at least not in kindergarten. I know quite well that there are families who would never read to their children if the school did not require it as homework and ask for the reading logs. Even with the reading "homework" there are still families who do not read with their children. But in our family reading together is something that is a nightly ritual. I want it to remain a time that Isaac enjoys for as long as possible. It is probable that reading for school will become something he dreads all too soon.

So we have been reading as usual every night and Isaac and I are fitting a weekly library visit into our schedule. Most of the books we brought home last week were not very memorable. I picked out a lot of nature themed books. Our nearest library branch has a strong environmental collection and this is a time of year that it is lovely to be outside so I was inspired to choose books on that theme. Isaac, however, was not as inspired.

He did like, love actually, Shark Vs. Train by Chris Barton . It is such a little boy book. Two boys pull a toy shark and a toy train out of a toy box and proceed to pit them against each other in contests. Which one is better at selling lemonade? Or high diving? The twist, though, is that the story is told from the shark's and train's perspectives. This book celebrates boys' imaginations and we read it just about every night.

Another book he liked from this week's pile is A Dark, Dark Tale by Ruth Brown. I thought he would like it because it reminds me of another of his favorite's, Big Spooky House by Donna Washington. (I've been meaning to write about that one -- maybe I will remember now that I have mentioned it here.) A Dark, Dark Tale is a simple, repetitive story. A little spooky, but with a surprising ending. After the second reading, Isaac could recite the words. It was a good lead up to Halloween books.

We have a new stash of library books this week. I am hoping there are a few more that Isaac gets excited about. We are going to start reading some short chapter books, too, since one of Isaac's teachers has introduced the class to Junie B. Jones. Not my favorite choice, but definitely a crowd pleaser. I brought one home in our bag of books, along with a couple of others I thought we would try. We will see how it goes.

Whatcha Reading?

I am more than a little pleased tonight. Isaac actually asked to go to the library after school tomorrow. We have been going just about every week this month and bringing home a nice pile of books to read. He likes to go and play and he specifically said that he wanted me to pick out the new books, but he WANTS to go! This is such a huge change from his adamant refusals over the summer that I am grinning from ear to ear. So we will head to the library after taekwondo tomorrow and I will choose another bag full of books to read this week.

Isaac has shown definite preference for a couple of the books we checked out on our last visit. He loves Mo Willems' newest series about "Cat the Cat." These books are simple and repetitive and after one reading he can "read" it to us. I prefer his "Elephant and Piggie" series, myself. They have a more sophisticated tone and drier sense of humor. But Cat the Cat and her friends (Hound the Hound, Horse the Horse, Pig the Pig, etc.) are exuberant and fun and Isaac requested them repeatedly.

Another book that he loved was Wendel's Workshop by Chris Riddell. Wendel is an inventor who has a bad habit of tossing anything that doesn't work. His backyard looks like a scene from Wall*E. He invents a robot to tidy his house, but his invention works a little too well and Wendel gets himself tidied right out of his own workshop. He has an epiphany while sitting on his scrap pile and uses his failed inventions to take back his space. Isaac loved looking at the pictures, especially the last one where the conquered Wendelbot has been made into an oversized flower pot. It is a story that teaches about perseverance and, indirectly, recycling and there is a lot of humor in the illustrations to get children giggling.

The last one I will mention from this week's library pile is Beverly Billingsly Can't Catch by Alexander Stadler. Matt and I probably like this one a bit more than Isaac does because the lesson is very timely for our family right now. Beverly is great at academics, but not so great at sports. She and her friend, Oliver, are always picked last for sports teams, especially softball. They decide to change that by learning how to play the game. Matt and I both appreciate the message that you can learn to do anything if you try hard and practice. You may not end up being the best, but you will get better. Isaac is playing t-ball again and taking taekwondo. We stress to him the importance of trying his hardest at both and I don't think there is another kid on the t-ball field that is as focused and intent on the game as Isaac is each week. Beverly just happens to be coached in softball by a pretty cool librarian who tells her not everything can be learned in a book, so that's another plus for this one, as well.

With school starting and taekwondo lessons and t-ball practices and church functions to shuttle to, not to mention the homework and other daily tasks that we are trying to keep up with, my goal is to try and post something once a week. If we can manage a weekly library trip, hopefully I will have some of Isaac's favorites to write about. So keep your fingers crossed that we keep up this momentum, otherwise we may be reduced to writing about one of the twenty "Curious George" books that Isaac has collected.