 Hopefully the showers of April have brought you May flowers, which also puts me in the mood to plant my own garden; flowers to bring me joy and herbs and vegetables for yumminess. I love being able to walk out to my backyard garden in the summer to gather what I need for a salad. We even keep pots of herbs on the deck, which my daughter loves to water and cut to use when we cook together. Be sure to include the little ones in decision making and in planting and don’t forget the fairies. They love their own garden and children enjoy creating them.  This last month of spring is Get Caught Reading month. Many schools reward students when they are “caught” reading this month but on the flip side, those same students are often reprimanded for reading when they shouldn’t be throughout the school year (I know, I was one of them.) Be supportive of and encourage your child’s reading habit and, if possible, snap a photo when you catch them reading and share it with us on our Facebook page. The first week of the month is the 100th anniversary of Children’s Book Week. Read your child’s favorite book with them or share one of your favorites from childhood. For ideas and further suggestions, check out the book lists on the BTBL website. This is also a great time to support local authors. Ask your librarian or local book seller who would be on the list. Last but not least, the second Sunday in May is Mother’s Day. Celebrate the day reading with your children, your mother and your grandmother if you are so lucky to have them all in your life. Including the generations fosters a sense of continuity and builds lasting memories. Special Dates in May *Note: this post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Any purchases made via the links provided go to support our literacy efforts. 4th: Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you!) - Need we say more? There are many Star Wars books to choose from, from board books to graphic novels. For a fun read choose a title from Jeffrey Brown’s Darth Vader series. If your child has other interests, get creative. Read under the stars, read about space exploration or extraterrestrials, and so on.
5th: Cinco de Mayo - Though officially the date is in celebration of a battle victory for the Mexican army in 1862, today in the U.S. it has become a celebration of Mexican culture. Read one of Roseanne Greenfield Thong’s books. Another fun option is Dragon’s Love Tacos by Adam Rubin or choose a book from the Skippyjon Jones series, a cat who thinks he’s a Chihuahua, by Judy Schachner.
16th: Author/Illustrator Margret Rey’s Birthday - Best known for the Curious George series she created with her husband, H.A. Rey. Read one of the many stories about the world’s favorite monkey and also read about the Reys’ harrowing journey to bring their beloved stories from war torn Europe to the United States in The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H. A. Rey by Louise W. Borden.
24th: Queen Victoria’s Birthday - The longest reigning British monarch until Queen Elizabeth. Besides a biography, there are several interesting and fun books you can read. Queen Victoria’s Bathing Machine by Gloria Whelan and The Queen’s Knickers by Nicholas Allan. An interesting title, especially for older children might be The Adventures of Alice Laselles, written by Queen Victoria herself when she was 10 years old.
Poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb” published in 1830 - Great time to read the poem with your child and sing the song. For older children who are already familiar with the poem, check out Mary Had a Little Lamp by Jack Lechner and Mary Had a Little Lab by Sue Fliess for laughs and perhaps use the Internet to find and listen to Thomas Edison reciting the first lines of the poem on the original phonograph. A great learning opportunity that also makes a connection to a historical event.
May is also a month for remembering our fallen heroes who died while serving in the armed forces. Armed Forces Day is the third Saturday in May and Memorial Day is the last Monday. Look for ways to celebrate our freedom and to honor those currently serving our country as well as our veterans.
Happy reading! -Kate @ BTBL Author We are three generations that seek a way to get back to basics. It’s not that we eschew technology, but sometimes simpler is better, especially in raising our children. Mom was a reading teacher, Amanda is an early childhood educator and Kate a children’s literature specialist and former school librarian along with the latest editions, a daughter for Kate (now 3) and a son for Amanda (now 1.) We advocate reading aloud, the simple toys that use imagination and encourage creativity and learning in the kitchen, which can be a fun mess but also teaches life skills. Join us in raising healthy, happy, inquisitive and intelligent children.
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The idea behind screen free week is for families to “rediscover the joys of life away from screens." The Screen Free organization believes as we do at BTBL that a childhood should include play, which invites exploration, expands imagination and builds creativity. Children need play to feed their curiosity and make sense of their world through hands-on interactions and what better way than to set an example and take time to play with the whole family. A Pew Survey finds that it is the households with children that own the most multiple gadgets and that these are most used to communicate and connect, which can be a positive thing but they can also distract us from what’s important; our children. I know that when I go out to the park with my daughter, which now that spring is here seems to be an almost daily activity, I use my phone to take photos of her and send them to family members. Just don’t get distracted and start reading your emails and text messages and ignore your child. Use the time together to play and explore.
We understand that completely disconnecting from all gadgets for an entire week may be an impossibility, so perhaps choose to disconnect from those devices that distract you and keep you disconnected from family. We feel that everyone needs a break from the electronic devices that have become such an integral part of every day life so take the leap and try to unplug for the week!
Even if you don’t unplug for the whole week, consider unplugging for a time to:
This year Screen Free Week coincides with the 100th anniversary of Children's Book Week, the "annual celebration of books for young people and the joy of reading." In honor of both occasions and in an attempt to get your kids on board with the idea of spending more time unplugged from their gadgets and gizmos, consider reading aloud the following titles during the week:
For additional information on unplugging, take a look at our previous blog Unplug This Summer!.
So, unplug, disconnect, and get back to basics this Screen Free and Children's Book Week!
-Kate @ BTBL Author
We are three generations that seek a way to get back to basics. It’s not that we eschew technology, but sometimes simpler is better, especially in raising our children. Mom was a reading teacher, Amanda is an early childhood educator and Kate a children’s literature specialist and former school librarian along with the latest editions, a daughter for Kate (now 3) and a son for Amanda (now 1.) We advocate reading aloud, the simple toys that use imagination and encourage creativity and learning in the kitchen, which can be a fun mess but also teaches life skills. Join us in raising healthy, happy, inquisitive and intelligent children.
Easter is almost here and in the vein of getting back to basics we decided to go the natural route this year and use onion skins to dye our eggs. It's surprisingly simple and a lot of fun! My three-year-old was quite thrilled with the entire experience and very pleased with the results.
So, what do you need for this activity?
Before getting started we headed outside to collect some bits of nature to use for making patterns on our eggs. My daughter loved searching for different types of leaves and flowers around the yard. We brought our finds inside, placed them onto our just washed still damp eggs and wrapped them in the nylons. Then the eggs went into the pot with the onion skins, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar and water and boiled for 20 minutes! Voila! Beautiful, naturally dyed eggs! 
While the eggs were simmering in the onion skins, we got out some Easter books and snuggled up for a brief storytime that led to an impromptu egg hunt throughout the house after my daughter decided to hide some plastic eggs we had handy. It was a delightful morning of bonding and memory making!
*Note: this post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Any purchases made via the links provided go to support our literacy efforts.
In our humble opinion, no Easter basket is complete without the addition of at least one or two books and, as mentioned above, reading Easter books is a great way to pass the time while you're waiting for your eggs to be done. Below is a list of a dozen of our favorite Easter books to read aloud!
For even more egg-cellent Easter reads take a look at our previous blog Hop Into Reading This Easter! and our Holiday Books list.
Happy Easter!
-Kate @ BTBL Author
We are three generations that seek a way to get back to basics. It’s not that we eschew technology, but sometimes simpler is better, especially in raising our children. Mom was a reading teacher, Amanda is an early childhood educator and Kate a children’s literature specialist and former school librarian along with the latest editions, a daughter for Kate (now 3) and a son for Amanda (now 1.) We advocate reading aloud, the simple toys that use imagination and encourage creativity and learning in the kitchen, which can be a fun mess but also teaches life skills. Join us in raising healthy, happy, inquisitive and intelligent children. All three of us at BTBL have worked in education with children of varying ages and have seen those that struggled with reading and the ones that ended up being placed in reading classes. More often than not, the younger children’s issues stemmed from a lack of exposure to books as well as a lack of interest, which if not addressed early is compounded in later years. The older children, middle and high school, could read the words but lacked the ability to comprehend what they read, which placed them at a severe disadvantage in an educational system that emphasizes standardized testing. When reading a passage in a test, comprehension is vital but if a child lacks a broad vocabulary and background knowledge, they cannot even make an educated guess.  If you search the Internet for how to assist your child in reading comprehension what you will find are sites that give information on explicit instruction in skills and strategies with worksheets to download and print off for a child to fill in before, during and after reading. While teaching reading strategies is not necessarily a bad thing, we would like to point out that if one is lacking background knowledge, comprehension will not occur. Let’s see what background knowledge can mean to comprehension. Read and summarize the following passage: Having crumbled to 214 all out, with Jonathan Trott's 84 not out the glue across an otherwise brittle English innings, the tourists were back in the contest when Paul Collingwood's brace had the hosts wobbling at 100 for five at the turn of the 21st over. Having a bit of difficulty? We did and that’s because we are not familiar with the game of cricket as any fifth grader would be who was raised in England. This shows that even though you can read the words of the passage, you need to be able to connect what you already know to what you are reading to comprehend the text, otherwise it is just words.  Another way to strengthen background knowledge is to use various books to build connections using one to build upon another, which aids in committing the experience and knowledge to memory. For example, you can begin by familiarizing your child with the nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb, if they don’t already know it, and then read Mary Had a Little Lamp by Jack Lechner, which puts a new twist on the classic rhyme. To further expand the experience, find a recording of Edison speaking into the first phonograph the words “Mary had a little lamb.” You can also use this concept by reading a non-fiction book on say trains and then finding a fiction book involving trains and perhaps a seek-and-find book and coloring pages on the subject and then visit and ride a train. Take an idea and expand on it with books and experiences. Take an interest or topic and let it grow with your child. For example:  Reading to your child is the best way to build background knowledge. A child’s reading comprehension does not meet their listening comprehension until approximately the eighth grade. In other words, a child can understand more of what they hear than what they can read on their own, so if there is a particular book your child is interested in and it’s listed above their age level, go ahead and read it to them if you deem it appropriate. It may require some explanation and illustrations will also assist with understanding but the experience will still add positively to their background knowledge. Rule of thumb is if they are engaged and are enjoying the story, stick with it. There are many excellent picture books out there, both fiction and non-fiction, that offer rich vocabulary and engaging stories that will build background knowledge and peak interests for further exploration.  Non-fiction books are an excellent way to build knowledge but fiction does as well and may be more memorable. There are so many picture books available that have engaging storylines, rich vocabulary and detailed illustrations, which both builds background knowledge and aids in comprehension. Books of yesteryear are also great to include for the vocabulary and illustrations. We have found that many children know only what is in their own sphere and have no concept of rotary telephones, typewriters, record players etc., which older books may refer to and have in their illustrations. So, don’t discount a book because of its age for there are many benefits and knowledge to glean that just might resurface later (think vinyl records.) Use both fiction and non-fiction to ignite interest, create curiosity and build knowledge. Titles to consider:
Books give you background knowledge without you even realizing it when you are reading. My mother read to her middle school students at the start of every class and she often had students come back later all excited that they saw, read or heard something that pertained to an idea or theme that was in the book she was reading, further expanding their knowledge, so just know that reading books give knowledge without the actual “teaching”. The idea is to read something of interest or just plain fun and the knowledge will be imparted naturally adding to a child’s “well of knowledge” to be recalled when needed. Consider the following ideas:
Even if you don’t do any extended activities, just keep reading. All reading gives knowledge and can even spark an idea that fuels the imagination. The focus of reading should not be for test taking purposes but rather for enjoyment and to get information on subjects that a child is passionate about. The simple act of reading every day will increase background knowledge and enhance a child’s life. Books and the physical experiences of everyday life become background knowledge and therefore reading to your child is extremely important and not just until they can read on their own but into the later years as well. Learning is a life long journey. Experience it with your child through books. Happy reading! -Kate @ BTBL Author We are three generations that seek a way to get back to basics. It’s not that we eschew technology, but sometimes simpler is better, especially in raising our children. Mom was a reading teacher, Amanda is an early childhood educator and Kate a children’s literature specialist and former school librarian along with the latest editions, a daughter for Kate (now 3) and a son for Amanda (now 1.) We advocate reading aloud, the simple toys that use imagination and encourage creativity and learning in the kitchen, which can be a fun mess but also teaches life skills. Join us in raising healthy, happy, inquisitive and intelligent children. |
AuthorWe are mom Sandra and daughters Amanda and Kate, all with backgrounds in literacy and education, who want to share our philosophy of taking the basics of life; books, simple toys that encourage play, imagination and creativity, and using cooking and baking to teach math and real life skills to raise happy, inquisitive children. Join us in exploring the old and the new and sifting through the myriad of research to consider what is best for our children. Archives
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