Book Reviews
Audio Books: A Great Way to Forget the Winter Chill
At our house it has become tradition to spend the cold days of our Iowa winters listening to books on CD. We are often finished with our schoolwork shortly after lunch which leaves the long afternoons to work together on a jigsaw puzzle while we listen to a book on CD. We have listened to… »
What I’ve Been Reading
You would think with the busyness of the holidays that I wouldn’t have time to read. Wrong! I always have time to read. It is definitely my sanity safety net. This month I have been reading a variety of things. Sometimes whole books, sometimes just portions of a book. Either way, I have found some… »
Fall Has Arrived! Time for Baking!
It is officially Fall as of September 22. I love this season. Actually, I love all the seasons! I am always ready for the next one just about the time it starts to arrive. In the Spring I can’t wait for the warm weather of Summer. The time when I can finally open my windows… »
Getting Your Kids to Read
A couple of months ago I wrote a post about the Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. I hope you have had a chance to take a look at this excellent resource. Now that it’s August, I am looking at what we will use for school this year. I have consulted several other resources similar… »
What I’ve Been Reading
My husband and children often tease me about how many books I have out from the library (sometimes over 100!). They also find it strange that I am usually reading several books at the same time. But that doesn’t really seem all that odd to me. After all, when I was in college, taking several… »
Save Money with Old-Fashioned Homemade Gifts
I am always on the lookout for frugal gift ideas. Even without the recent economic woes, we have needed to be careful in this area. It is easy to go way over your budget for gifts in a hurry! With my large family and fast-growing extended family, finding a way to give gifts to those… »
Mama, Let’s Color!
One of my favorite activities, especially on rainy or snowy days, is to color with my kids. Now I’m not talking about the box of crayons and the dime store coloring book sort of coloring. I am talking about artist quality colored pencils and Dover Publications coloring books. Dover Publications has hundreds of coloring books… »
Jim Trelease’s Read Aloud Handbook
Recently a friend reminded me of a wonderful resource that I had used many years ago and then somehow forgot about. Back when I was in college I took a children’s literature course that introduced me to The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. At that time I was revisiting my childhood, reading piles of… »
A Boxful of Memories
I’ve spent the past several weeks sorting through boxes of keepsakes. I can’t believe some of the stuff I’ve kept over the years. When we moved three and a half years ago we made fewer and fewer decisions about what to pack as the days drew nearer to moving day. Finally, at the end we just… »
Some Good Old-Fashioned Summer Fun
If you are like me, you are always looking for some fun things for the kids to do that don’t involve “screens” of any kind. By that I mean computer, TV, iPod, video game, you get the idea…. Here are a couple of books that are loaded with some of the fun things we did… »
