My goal this month is to post about a different holiday book each day, so I am doubling up today since my book fair post didn't actually mention a specific book. There were quite a few holiday books on the book fair and I brought most of them home to read with Isaac before everything is shipped back to Scholastic. One that he thought was particularly funny was Mrs. Greenberg's Messy Hanukkah by Linda Glaser.
I only occasionally bake with Isaac. Baking is not my favorite thing to do and baking with a six year-old requires a level of patience that I do not possess. The aspect of baking that frustrates me the most is the mess -- and I can never bake anything without there being a mess. Add in Isaac's help and the mess is multiplied by ten. Matt and Isaac have baked together quite a bit, even making a few things for me. The mess doesn't bother them as much. I probably don't need to mention how I feel about the mess they make.
Mrs. Greenberg's Messy Hannukah is about the mess that is created when a little girl tries to help her neighbor make latkes. Isaac laughed when the flour and the oil and the potatoes spilled all over the floor. I could relate all to well to the frustration of the neighbor as she got out the broom and then the mop and finally gave up on the cleaning.
But this book reminds me that I used to tolerate baking enough that I would spend a weekend every year before Christmas making goodies and that some of my favorite memories are of baking with my grandmother. Each fall Isaac and I (mostly me) make an apple or pumpkin pie from scratch, but the big Christmas marathon baking has been pushed aside by all of the other activities that have taken over our weekends.
I also brought home a Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas cookbook from school. I would like to take some time before Christmas to make at least one of the recipes from each of the books with Isaac. We may end up with a floor covered with oil and flour, but we will hopefully have some good memories, too.
Showing posts with label Linda Glaser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linda Glaser. Show all posts
10 December 2011
22 November 2011
Better Late than Never
It seemed like it took fall a while to get here this year. Not the actual date, but the colors. The weather stayed warm and the leaves stayed green longer than in past years, or so it seemed. But when they did arrive, they were glorious. The oranges and yellows looked especially vibrant.
Isaac and I were driving home one afternoon close to 5:00, after Daylight Saving Time had ended, so dusk was only about 30 minutes away. It was one of those perfect times when the angle of the sun was just right and hitting the leaves at just the right spot that it almost seemed as if they glowed. I should have stopped to take a picture, except I don't do things like that and I wouldn't have been able to capture the image well enough to do the colors justice. But I can still see them when I close my eyes, so maybe they will stay with me long enough to get me through the long, gray days ahead.
I realized, now that the leaves have fallen and been raked and bagged, that I had not included any fall books in my posts this month. While we were raking leaves in our friend's yard over the weekend, a couple came to mind as I watched Isaac hesitantly jump into the piles that we had made.
Fall Leaves Fall By Zoe Hall and It's Fall! by Linda Glaser are two that I like to read to my classes each year. They celebrate the colors and the changes of the season. It's Fall is especially lovely, with its collage art illustrations. Of course, they include the obligatory science connections (animals hibernating or migrating or otherwise adapting to the colder weather, temperature changes, how humans adjust). But they are fun to read and pretty to look at.
So put them on your list for next year when you are waiting for colors that don't seem to want to show themselves. Or read them at the end of January when you need an infusion of color in those long gray days.
Isaac and I were driving home one afternoon close to 5:00, after Daylight Saving Time had ended, so dusk was only about 30 minutes away. It was one of those perfect times when the angle of the sun was just right and hitting the leaves at just the right spot that it almost seemed as if they glowed. I should have stopped to take a picture, except I don't do things like that and I wouldn't have been able to capture the image well enough to do the colors justice. But I can still see them when I close my eyes, so maybe they will stay with me long enough to get me through the long, gray days ahead.
I realized, now that the leaves have fallen and been raked and bagged, that I had not included any fall books in my posts this month. While we were raking leaves in our friend's yard over the weekend, a couple came to mind as I watched Isaac hesitantly jump into the piles that we had made.
Fall Leaves Fall By Zoe Hall and It's Fall! by Linda Glaser are two that I like to read to my classes each year. They celebrate the colors and the changes of the season. It's Fall is especially lovely, with its collage art illustrations. Of course, they include the obligatory science connections (animals hibernating or migrating or otherwise adapting to the colder weather, temperature changes, how humans adjust). But they are fun to read and pretty to look at.
So put them on your list for next year when you are waiting for colors that don't seem to want to show themselves. Or read them at the end of January when you need an infusion of color in those long gray days.
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