A Jump Start…

…And Back Behind the Wheel

I’m back! When I realized I the other day that it was early December last time I posted, I was shocked! And then again, I wasn’t. Just before the holidays, I shared my desire to release the overwhelmedfeelings that result from trying to do EVERYTHING and instead focus on doing SOME THINGS to satisfaction. I gave myself permission to not feel guilty about not sticking to a posting schedule. I successfully let go of the guilt, but I missed the creative outlet, the feeling of accomplishment every time I posted something I was proud of, and especially the interaction and inspiration of the blog community I’ve become a part of. I also discovered that while I didn’t want to commit to unrewarding activities just because I “should,” the commitment of a schedule is good for me, blogging or otherwise. I knew I wanted to get back to my blog, but without a schedule it kept becoming another thing “I’ll do tomorrow.”

Inspiration by Mail

In a serendipitous session of late night blog-browsing, I came across Amanda’s idea at The Educator’s Spin on It for an exchange of book and activity packs. Besides being a fabulous and fun idea, it was just the thing to put me back on a schedule and get me back in the bloggy-pool. So if you’ve read this far, thanks for the personal indulgence and now on to the good stuff:

What We Got

Our package came from Robyn at Pen Pals and PictureBooks. She sent us a copy of Lois Ehlert’s Fish Eyes. It’s an eye-catching counting book that lends itself to artistic expression as well as a variety of language and math skills. 

The package also included glue, paintbrushes, tubes of glitter, and construction paper fish. Her note pointed us to a recent post that featured her own experience with Fish Eyes. Like all Ehlert books, the colors and patterns are vivid, and while they don’t sparkle, glitter seems only appropriate in an attempt to capture the bright illustrations. The boys went to town with their glue “paint.” B experimented with patterns and stripes, while T favored abstract dots. I couldn’t help but decorate one myself… glitter is hard to resist! 

Fish Eyes provides a visually stimulating counting practice, but it doesn’t stop there. Each fish in the counted group has a cut-out circle for an eye, through which the color of the next page is visible. Because each number group is featured on a two-page spread, some of the cut-outs are on each side. We used counted the holes on each side and then practiced addition facts to determine the number of the total group (ie. 3 holes on the right plus 4 holes on the left equals 7 fish eyes). Ehlert also makes use of many vivid verbs to describe the number groups, offering opportunities for vocabulary development. The rhyming text calls upon the reader to consider what he might wish for. (Would he be a fish?) B decided it would be fun to be a fish as long as he knew he could turn back into a person. We very much enjoyed both the story and the art, and we are grateful to both Robyn for sending it and Amanda for the organization and jump-start!

**Don’t know if it was coincidence or careful planning on Amanda’s part, but our package went to the other half of Pen Pals, Whitney. We sent her a copy of The Alphabet Tree (the same one B gifted to his kindergartenteacher) along with some letter stamps and bug building supplies. Check out theadorable trees she created!

Appropriate for toddlers, preschoolers, primary grades.

[steering wheel photo credit kenski1970 on flickr]

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Feed Me Books Friday: Sorting out the Holidays

What’s in the Mail Today?


We got our first Christmas cards this week, which was exciting for both B and me. While I love the efficiency, ease, and convenience of email, facebook, and texts, there is something special about getting a handwritten message delivered by the mail carrier. Christmas cards and vacation postcards are my favorite. I’m a notorious procrastinator, but these early cards, along with some recent posts by some of my favorite mom-bloggers, got me motivated to start working on mine. I’ll be sharing the result next week, but for now, I wanted to share what I’m doing to keep B busy while I work.
Busy Fingers

I enlisted B’s help for some of the card design (which you’ll see more of next week). But after his artistic input I needed a little work time to make it come together, so I got out some supplies for him to create some cards of his own. To keep him motivated, I made the recipient list totally up to him. It included some neighbors, some family, and some friends from preschool. He’s more freestyle than fill-in-the-blanks, so with some colored paper, markers, and glitter glue, he was ready to go. What was important to him was authenticity, which meant he needed envelopes, stamps, and addresses. I save the reply envelopes from various junk mail solicitations and bills I pay online along with blank or nearly blank envelopes from greeting cards or thank you note sets. He recycles them in his correspondence play. I also made up some stamp glue from a recipe at DLTK. I printed out a page of thumbnail size holiday clip-art, painted on the glue, and did the cutting for B so he wouldn’t end up with sticky fingers. He was happily productive (and so was I, thanks to a nap from T)! Then he remembered he needed addresses…

Who gets What?

B has expressed a lot of curiosity lately about addresses, phone numbers, and why our keys don’t open just any door. It’s the kind of curiosity I love to capitalize on for teaching rather than drilling out of context. He’s almost mastered our address, but phone numbers are still a little tricky. Children who learn their home address and phone number not only achieve an important safety skill, but it is also an marker of a preschooler’s social development when he can understand that he is a part of his city or town with a distinct place, or address, within that group. To capitalize on that curiosity and reinforce his understanding of the postal process, we read The Silly Christmas Card Mix-Up, by Suzy-jane Tanner. Reindeer sends cards to all his friends, but forgets the addresses, and they get all mixed up! His animal friends use clues in the cards to sort-out the delivery and get each greeting to the correct recipient. Flaps on each page allow children to participate in the story and help the animals “open” the cards. Once we read the book, we talked about the kind of information necessary for B’s envelopes. For some, simply writing the name of the person we would hand it to was sufficient. For others, that were going to the post office, we talked about why an address is important.

Appropriate for toddlers and preschoolers.

Are you preparing for holidays or family traditions? Are books a part of the plan? I’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments or read about them in your links!
[photo courtesy "sidehike" on flickr]


Also wanted to mention I'm being featured this Friday at ABC and 123! If you're not already a follower, you'll love all the great learning ideas shared at this cooperative! Stop by if you have a chance and leave a little comment love for me there!

Due to some computer/internet issues, my post is waiting happily on a computer where I can't get to it, I'll update with my book for the week as soon as I can, but in the meantime I wanted to get the linky up for those who are participating this week. FINALLY FIXED!!!

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