Early Literacy Around the House: The Living Room

Your living room (or family room, or den, or whatever you prefer to call it) is a great place to engage the entire family in fun early literacy activities and habits. Today's post provides a few suggestions.

• Read aloud as a family. My husband and I began a practice of reading aloud together before we were even married, and it is a tradition we continue now that we have children. Though our kids are small, we don't just read picture books, but poetry, articles, essays, interesting quotations, as well as children's novels, classics, and anything else we think is worth hearing. Sometimes our audience is our daughter (age 2), but other times, we are reading just for the sake of it, knowing that some of it goes over her head, but that some of it sinks in too. By reading aloud as a family in full hearing of all family members you demonstrate very strongly that reading is an important part of your family life.  
• Look at magazines and point out familiar objects, words and letters. Little Miss Muffet is obsessed with magazines. She does often prefer to rip them, but she has also learned a variety of vocabulary from pointing out different things to me in Parents magazine, or in catalogs we receive in the mail. When she was really little, she liked to look at pictures of babies, but more and more, she is interested in knowing the names of household objects, or of letters in different typefaces. If you have a basket of magazines near your couch, or a stack on your coffee table, don't hesitate to let your kids enjoy them. As long as there isn't any objectionable content, these can be a great way to incorporate novel language into your everyday lives.
• Tell stories about family photos on the wall and in albums. Kids love hearing stories about the people in their family. Use family photos as jumping off points for telling tales about your own life before your kids were born, and your kids' own experiences at ages they were too little to remember. If you have long-distance relatives, a photo album is also a great way to teach kids their names so they won't be total strangers each time you get together. Older photographs of grandparents or great-grandparents are also often very interesting to kids, for whom the 20th century feels like ancient history.
• Put together an alphabet puzzle. A table or space on the living room floor is a perfect place to put together an alphabet puzzle. Make it an interactive family experience by dividing up the letters so that everyone is responsible for a certain few. Have your children figure out whose turn it is based on which letter comes next. 

Will you have a Christmas tree in your living room this holiday season? If so, you might also enjoy this post!

Mother Daughter Book Reviews Guest Post: Top 10 Read-Aloud Picture Books

Today I'm over at Mother Daughter Book Reviews sharing my top 10 favorite read-aloud picture books. Click here to see my list!

Advent Reading Round-Up: Week One

This year, during Advent, I am attempting to expose Little Miss Muffet (age 2) to both secular and religious Christmas music and stories. We have a Jesse tree  - a branch I found outside, decorated with these printable ornaments - and we are reading picture books based on the Bible stories that inspire each ornament, as well as other books about Christmas trees, waiting for Santa, etc. Below is this week's reading list, with summaries of each book and my comments about how we liked them.

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Day 1 (11/29/15)

A New Coat for Anna
by Harriet Ziefert and Anita Lobel

In this book, set in the aftermath of World War II, Anna's mother has no money to afford a new coat, so she barters various valuables to obtain the wool, and to have it spun into yarn, woven into cloth, and sewed into a coat. The story culminates at Christmas, with a thank you party for all those made it possible for Anna to have her warm, red coat.

This was a childhood favorite of mine - I was around six years old when I first read it, and I can remember taking it down from the bookshelf to read over and over again. Miss Muffet is a bit young for it, and she didn't really sit and listen to it the first time through. She was mostly interested in Anna (she kept repeating her name) and the sheep. I left the book out for her to enjoy during the rest of the week, however, and we did read it an additional time, and she also spent a fair amount of time looking at the pictures on her own. I hope she will enjoy it as much as I do as she gets older!

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Day 2 (11/30/15)

The Poky Little Puppy's First Christmas

by Adelaide Holl and Florence Sarah Winship 

I was a huge fan of the original Poky Little Puppy story when I was a toddler, and my husband had a copy of this book from his own childhood, so I decided to put it on our list. It's by a different author than the original, so the writing is somewhat different (and possibly better...) but the overall story is still a didactic message about listening to one's mother. But if you've ever had a two-year-old, you know this lesson cannot be repeated too many times, so we have read it at least twice, with heavy emphasis on the rules the puppies are given for good behavior.

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Day 3 (12/1/15)

Let There Be Light 
by Pauline Baynes

We began our Jesse tree on the first, rather than on the first Sunday of Advent, when our reading project started, because our ornament set only includes 24 days. The first ornament is of The Creation, so we read this picture book version of the King James translation of the story. Much of the language went over Miss Muffet's head, but she was still happy to listen, and she really got interested in the page showing all the animals God made. We are working on teaching her that God made us and all things, so of course this book also prompted her to start making a list. "God made Mama. God made Dada. God made monkeys." Overall, though, I think this book will have more meaning to her in a couple of years.

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Day 4 (12/2/15)

Paradise 
by Fiona French

The purpose of doing this project this year is really just to begin the habit, not necessarily to teach Miss Muffet every detail of every Bible story. I included this book, which matches the Jesse Tree ornament for both the second and third days of Advent: Adam and Eve, and The Fall, respectively, knowing that she would understand very little of it. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, when after reading the book only once, she was able to tell me, "Adam and Eve not listen to God." The art in this book is really abstract, and there are naked breasts near the end, so I'm not sure I will want to use it at certain developmental stages, but it worked fine for this year. In the future, though, I may just read the story from a children's Bible.

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Day 5 (12/3/15)

Christmas Tree Memories 
by Aliki 

Since Adam and Eve are featured two days in a row on the Jesse Tree, I opted not to read a religious book again on this day. Instead, we read Christmas Tree Memories by Aliki, which was a recent library book sale find. In the story, a family - mom, dad, boy, and girl - sit by their tree on Christmas Eve and reminisce about the memories their Christmas ornaments bring to mind. Miss Muffet only vaguely remembers last year's Christmas tree, so I wasn't sure she would really get this book, but she was completely silent and still the entire time I was reading, and when the story was over, she immediately wanted a turn to "read" it herself. I think we will enjoy this book more as years go by and we build up our own collection of ornaments with stories behind them.

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Day 6 (12/4/15)

Noah's Ark 
by Linda Falken

This book is illustrated using famous paintings depicting various scenes from the Noah's Ark story. The text is taken directly from the Bible. Though I don't think Miss Muffet understood a word of what I read, she was really drawn to the book and asked to hear it a second time. There didn't seem to be anything in particular that she liked; she was just very insistent that we repeat the story before she would take her nap. Personally, I didn't really like the disjointedness of seeing each moment of the story illustrated in a different style - but if I were teaching this story to an older child, I would appreciate having the paintings available to help me, so I'm glad to own this book for future years.

We Were There 
by Eve Bunting and Wendell Minor

This book really belongs later in the line-up, as it is a Nativity story, but I found it randomly at the library and didn't want to pass it up, so we snuck it in here since I will have to return it in a week or so. The story follows various animals and insects - a snake, a bat, a cockroach - as they follow the star to the stable where Jesus is born. Jesus is never named, but visual cues make it very clear - even to a two-year-old - that the creatures have come to witness the birth of Jesus. I found this book especially poignant because of its focus on the "undesirable" or "less significant" creatures  that will be forgotten by history, while the horses, lambs, and donkeys are praised for their accommodation of the infant Jesus. There is a definite parallel between this story and Jesus's teaching that "the last shall be first" that I found very satisfying. I might like to own this book in the future. Miss Muffet loved it, too, mainly for the paintings. (We are big Wendell Minor fans.)

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There are more Advent reads to come! Check back next Saturday for Week Two's Round-Up!

Animal Sounds Board Books

As soon as young children begin to talk, adults start encouraging them to imitate animal sounds. There are many books to support this early learning experience; today's post highlights some of the best available in board book format. 

Mice Squeak, We Speak by Arnold L. Shapiro, illustrated by Tomie dePaola (ISBN: 9780399237980)

This illustrated poem compares animal behavior and communication to that of human kids. The warmly colored illustrations are appealing especially to toddlers, even if the book might be too long to read in one sitting.

Honk, Honk! Baa, Baa! by Petr Horacek (ISBN: 9780763667801)
The text of this book is suitably basic for children who are just learning to speak, but the appeal is in the vibrantly colored illustrations which perfectly portray the demeanor and behavior of each animal. A lift-the-flap component also invites babies to interact with the book.

Roar: A Big-Mouthed Book of Sounds by Jonathan Litton, illustrated by Fhiona Galloway (ISBN: 9781589255937)
This book features a hole down the center which represents the open mouth of a different animal on each page. Accompanying these engaging illustrations are the sounds made by the animals and invitations to guess which one is coming up next.

Can You Say It Too? series by Sebastien Braun 
Each volume of this series focuses on a different group of animals from a different environment (farm, jungle, pond, forest, etc.) Each animal is hidden behind a flap to be found by the young reader.

Animal Sounds by Aurelius Battaglia (ISBN: 9780375832789)

This vintage Golden book has very straightforward text which asks what each animal says and then provides the answer. The illustrations strike the perfect balance between realistic and cartoonish.

Who Says That, Cat the Cat? by Mo Willems (ISBN: 9780062306548)
This book is one of a series of "mini" books Willems has done based on his Cat the Cat series for beginning readers. In the book, each animal makes its familiar sound, except for Bunny the Bunny, who doesn't say anything.

For more animal books for babies and toddlers, see last week's list of Animal Traits Board Books.