Big Book Of My World Review

We received Big Book of My World by Kall Stileman from TigerTales to review. Selena and I have been talking for sometime that we need to make a question box for the numerous number of questions that she can ask in one day. As I thumbed through this book I thought it would be fun to give us some inspiration to create that box, since this book is compiled of all questions.

As we sat down to read the book, Selena was quick to listen to the questions and go right to work to find the different objects in the pictures. I kept reading until she was beginning to lose the interest. This is not to say that she didn’t like the book, but it is a book of 48 pages all pretty much the same thing. I would recommend if you read this book with your child, especially a younger child that you use the table of contents and do one section at a time.

I appreciated the fact that the book is broke down into such neat sections, covering a range of ideas that any young child would enjoy. The recommended age is 3 years to 7 years, which I would say is about right, but keep in mind there are things in the book that a 3 year old may not understand and things that a 7 year old might find too repetitive or immature. I really see this as a strong book that could grow with your child should you purchase it when your child is younger. However, with an almost 6 year old, I found quite a bit of the book to be too young for her.

Over all Selena was not that impressed with the book, I consider this to be in part to her age, and abilities, I do feel a younger child would appreciate the book and enjoy learning through the sections. This book retails for $14.99 at Amazon, but right now it is on sale for $11.66.

We moved on to make our question box. I had a large plastic Margarine container. I asked Selena what she thought she could do with it. She chose to help me wrap it in purple construction paper then proceeded to decorate it.

Of course when it was finished Selena had to put some questions in it, after all it is a question box. Her questions consisted of, “How does a radio work?” and “Why does the earth spin?”

Selena was very proud of her question box, and throughout the rest of the day asked to add more questions to it. Every time I asked her what question she wanted to put in, she didn’t have one, but she did say “We will fill it up soon Grandma!”

stArt and Book Review

We received a big box from UPS. Both Selena and I were a little curious as to what was inside, since we truly were not expecting any deliveries. Upon opening the box it hit me Tiger Tales, and their new Spring Titles. Selena was truly very excited to discover all the books inside.

The book Selena chose to read was Bustle in the Bushes by Giles Andreae, illustrated by David Wojtowycz.

After we read the story together, and Selena retreated to read it by herself, I created a puzzle for her to put together. I took red and black construction paper and cut out the different shapes that would form a lady bug.

About the story: The book starts out and ends with some cute poetry about the world at the bottom of our backyard. Throughout the pages each bug, worm, and caterpillar gets to introduce themselves, what they like to eat, and where they live. Selena enjoyed the story and I found it to be quite cute. This book would be perfect for most any young age, while the story is simple and would keep the attention of even the youngest audience, it does provide some challenge for the budding reader. I would recommend checking this book out.

As for Selena’s finished ladybug. She truly enjoyed this project, but must admit she had to be quite the ham for the picture.

I was furnished a copy of this book from Tiger Tales to review. The review is my opinion. I received no compensation for my opinion.

It’s been a while but I am linking this up at A Mommy’s Adventure.

stART How You Got So SMART

From the minute I seen How You Got So SMART by David Milgrim on the library shelf, I knew we just had to bring it home. When we first began to read this book, Selena was a little confused and I think she thought I had lost my marbles, since this book celebrates the life and learning of a child from infancy to big kid. It so reflects everything all of us watch our children do as they develop along with all the things that we enjoy doing with them and teaching them. By the time we finished the book, Selena announced, “This is a story about ME!” I believe any child would be able to relate to this story and see themselves with in the pages of this book.

I asked Selena one important question after reading this book, “Why do you think mama and papa spend so much time playing and teaching you?” Her answer was, “Because you love me!” When Jolanthe  at Homeschool Creations and No Ordinary Moments introduced her Little Leaps of Love I knew this book would be a perfect start to a unit on all the different ways we love and how we can express our love. If you haven’t heard of this month long challenge I encourage you to check it out. You will find her button on my side page. She even has fabulous gifts to go along with the challenge.

The first challenge was to leave “I Love You” messages for the family. Jolanthe suggested writing them on the fogged over mirror of the bathroom, which I thought was so sweet, but since I knew our mirror would not stay fogged over until Selena woke up, I went to work to make her a “I Love You” card, which I hung on the refrigerator for her to discover when she first woke up. She was all smiles as she looked up to find it and read what it said.

After her nap, we read this book again, and began to discuss how many ways we show someone we love them. I first pointed out that Mama and Papa love her so much and that is why we spend so much time with her, playing, reading, and teaching her. We then talked about ways we could tell someone we love them. She ran and grabbed her note off the refrigerator, and we set forth to make cards for Papa. While we made them we discussed many of the different things that Selena has learned through her 4 years. She pointed out how she is learning to write, draw, color and cut. As a combined effort we came up with the following “I Love You” notes for Papa. Then came the fun part where to hide them. Selena wanted to hide one under the bed, I had to explain the difference in hiding something so that the person can actually find it and hiding something for a hide and seek game.

She finally settled to put one on his pillow in the bedroom, and hang on the bathroom mirror. She then put hers back up on the refrigerator. I loved making these tiny notes for both Selena and Papa, but I especially loved making Papa’s because Selena was helping me. She put as much thought into how they should look as I did.

I am linking this post to A Mommy’s Adventure.

stART/Funny Animal Headband

Selena has been asking to make a Funny Animal Headband ever since she seen the craft the other night when we let her watch an episode of Sprout. I was hoping that she would get more creative with it, but on this particular morning Selena was feeling out of sorts. She woke up at 5:30 a.m. was back in bed for almost 2 hours at 7:30, the very quiet the rest of the morning.

We looked through out books and found a couple of books about pets or animals and read both of them.

My Dog’s the Best! by Stephanie Calmenson illustrations by Marcy Dunn Ramsey is a Scholastic Level 1 reader so Selena had no problem reading this book all by herself. It is a cute book celebrating the differences in dogs and how these differences make every dog special especially to the child who owns him/her. While each child declares why their dog is the best, they also point out one distinct quality that makes their dog the best. For dog lovers it really shows that all breeds can be the best, so long as it is the one that fits in your family.

My Pal Al by Marcia Leonard photographs by Dorothy Handelman was another easy read for Selena. It is a story about a little girl and her favorite stuffed animal a bunny. Selena could relate to the story since her favorite stuffed animal is her bunny. While the bunny in the book is named Pal just like her puppy, and her bunny’s name is hoppy, she still enjoyed the story.

After reading these I measured her head and cut out a band to fit around her head. I asked her what color she wanted the ears, and she chose red. I asked her how she wanted them shaped and she exclaimed like a bunny.

  She quickly grabbed her crayons and went to work on decorating the head band and the ears. We then taped everything together so that she could go right to wearing her silly animal headband.

Selena has had hours of fun with her Funny Animal Headband, now we will see how long it lasts before we just have to throw it away. I am linking this to A Mommy’s Adventure.

stART/Biscuit and the Little Pup

For Christmas we purchased Selena quite a few of the Biscuit books, since these have always been one of her favorite independent readers. You are probably getting tired of hearing about our puppy, but we have had fun this week learning all about him, how to take care of him, as well as how to play and handle him. I had to do a art project with Selena to celebrate her new friend, Pal. We read Biscuit and the Little Pup by Alyssa Satin Capucilli.

Out of card stock I had pre-cut a large circle and some tear dropped shapes. I asked Selena to choose the color she thought most looked like her puppy and color these shapes. She decided we needed a little dark brown added since he does have some darker brown coloring as well. I helped her with that. We then assembled our puppy and attached him to a stick so that Selena could play with him.

She informed me that it makes a perfect mask, except for the fact you can’t see around it. She could hardly wait for it to dry so that she could play with her craft.

I am linking this up at A Mommy’s Adventure who hosts stART.

stART/The First Christmas

I was going to use this as our Geography/History post. We were going to pull out the biblical maps and learn all about Mary and Joseph’s travels. Unfortunately before we could get that far Selena came down with the stomach flu. No sense in leaving a good book and a fun time playing go to waste.

This truly was not the book that came to mind when I decided to do this activity, I know there are other books about the First Christmas that would have been better suited for Selena’s age, but this was the only one I could get from our library.

The First Christmas by Nonny Hogrogian is a great story about the birth of Jesus. It is more geared for an older child. Much of the book went up and over Selena’s head as we read it together. She enjoyed the activity we did with the story though, and I do believe she did retain a lot of the information that I was trying to teach her.

Using Selena’s little Nativity set we reread the story and she followed as closely as she could to put all the pieces in their proper place. I did have to help guide her a bit as for where we might place them.

Her first comment after she finished this was, “Grandma this looks like your pretty native set.” I loved how she referred to it as a native set instead of a nativity set. As she pointed to mine up on top of the piano.

The box that her set is sitting in is a box I received last Christmas in a give-a-way. After I used the lotions and soaps that came in the box, I just sat the box aside for Selena to use somehow this Christmas. She now has a hefty carrying box for her native set that she can pack around pull out and play with all Christmas long.

The box is so beautiful with a winter theme, inside is decorated with a fireplace. It also has a sturdy red rope handle. It has been fun to watch Selena retell the First Christmas through her play with her own little nativity set or as she calls it native set.

stART/The Tree That Came To Stay

This morning I cut out a green tree from construction paper, and I used the whole punch to make a lot of different colored circles. I glued the tree on a piece of white construction paper. While that dried we ate lunch and I read The Tree That Came To Stay by Anna Quindlen.

This is a cute story about a family who every year goes out to cut a fresh Christmas tree. Each child has their own view of what type of tree they should bring home. This year though is a little different as it is their baby brother’s first time looking for the perfect tree. As they make their way through the snow the baby brother trips and falls into a tree. As Dad retrieves him from his fall they decide while this tree isn’t quite what the other two imagined, it is the perfect tree. Once home the decorations go up, the presents go under the tree. Then the dreaded day comes when the tree has to be removed from the house. Mom saves the day by giving them a basket to take some of the needles from the tree, then places it on the table.

Selena then began to decorate her Christmas tree.

At first she wanted to put each decoration on one at a time, until her little fingers began to get sticky from the glue. So she came up with the idea to just sprinkle them all over the tree and press them down where they landed.

Her finished tree. After it dried it was hung on the wall next to her snowman.

I am linking this to stART, a story and art at A Mommy’s Adventures.

stART/ The Happy Snowman

After building our Snowman on Sunday, Selena rediscovered her board book The Happy Snowman that we got her along with 3 other board books for her first Christmas. The story is about some friends who enjoy going out to play in the snow and of course they build a snowman.

We set off to make our own painted snowman. I drew the snowman with white chalk, then Selena painted in the snowballs. She even tried to paint a second snowman to the side of this one with no lines to guide her. When she finished painting this we set it aside to dry.

After the paint totally dried we then used markers to decorate and finish our snowman. Complete with stick arms and a carrot nose.

Happy Thanksgiving from our home to yours!

I am linking this to A Mommy’s Adventure.

stART/Mouse Makes Words

After reading Mouse Makes Words by Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook I just knew we had to do an extension with this book. It took Selena a little bit to warm up to the book since we use a little different technique then what is called for in the book. This is a cute story though about how Mouse discovers how he can create rhyming words just by changing one letter.

I pulled our our scrabble game and pulled out all the letters we would need for this book. As we began to read the book together, Selena had to pick the correct letters from her pile and make the word.

The story starts out with making the word Hog and then changing it to Log.

Find the word Net. Scoop up the N. Push in a P. Awk! Now it is PET!

Find the word Bug. Shoo away the B. Here comes an H. Hurray! Now it is a HUG!

Selena had fun making all the words. I wanted to do a little more using the method we usually do to make some four letter words out of these, but because we were finished reading the book, Selena was done.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has a beginner reader to reinforce rhyming words and beginning phonics.

I am linking this up at A Mommies Adventure.