Letter D over a few weeks... (Post from October)

Well again (as usual) life has happened.  Monkey has had some issues for over a year and it finally got to the point we had to schedule him for surgery.  In the meantime I've been trying to balance getting another job to work from home as well as big orders and working on stuff for Baby K (I have a HUGE list of things I have to get made still).  So we're behind where we wanted to be but plan to play catch up.  So here are the books we've been reading:

Bob Book C/D book
Alphatales Detective Dog and the Disappearing Doughnuts (we have the whole set of Alphatales-if you're new to the blog check out the link on the left side for information about the materials we often use)

Have You Seen My Duckling? Great book for babies and young toddlers.  Its mainly pictures with just a few words

Monkey's favorite:













 Mom's pick for lots of learning (great opposites book)













One Duck Stuck- fun counting book

 Dinosaur Alphabet-more for older kids as the alphabet is a bunch of hard-to-pronounce dinosaur names.  Monkey loved looking at the pictures though.

 Another Day of Dinosaurs (and a few others)

 My First Golden Book of ABC's-cute alphabet book but a little outdated (pictures of money are old)





 I highly recommend this one to beginning counters.  It was a really good book teaching different things to count.








 Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs-really fun book by Byron Barton (we love his board books!).  Very simple and fun pictures

Danny and the Dinosaur-we really enjoyed this book.  I would highly recommend it for a simple fun book to read

ABC T-Rex-we especially liked this one.  I like to get an alphabet book relating to our topic whenever I can and this one fit in perfectly.  The pictures are bright and fun to look at.

I'm Going to Read (Level 2): Hungry Dinosaur (I'm Going to Read Series)-I've liked all of the "I'm going to read" books we've read so far.  The book is very simple to read, has really fun pictures, and an enjoyable story.  Monkey tried to read along.

Dinosaur Roar (Picture Puffins)-Monkey also liked this one.  It was a fun read.  Here's a link for the board book and a finger puppet.




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Doggies! Wednesday Tot School week 2

Monkey got to spend some time with his grandparents today!  He had a blast!  Grandma brought some fun books for him to read which we plan to talk about soon here :).  After they left we enjoyed some Butternut Squash soup I made (I found some Butternut squash at the grocery store Monday and got really excited).  While it was boiling the squash in spices and water we watched Signing Time volume 1 (First Signs).  After dinner we read a bunch and looked at our Brown Bear tot book (I'll talk about it in a bit as well as where to get the stuff!).

Books we read:
Alphatales D: Detective Dog and the Disappearing Doughnuts (see my materials we use for more info about Alphatales-you can also check out all the threads with the Alphatales tags.
Puppy Love-This was my first book that I "read" as a child (I memorized it and told the whole story almost word for word).  It's a fun story about taking care of a puppy (puppy-sitting).
101 Dalmatians-based on the Disney movie.  Fun to read the story!
Clifford Barks!  We liked this one.  Monkey had to keep yelling out "doggie" throughout the whole story
Clifford's Peekaboo-Monkey's favorite Clifford book so far (but we borrowed it from the library).  He loves to cover his eyes with his hands or a playsilk or whatever and say "Baby?" or "Buddy?" and then uncover and yell out "BOO!"  He thought it was funny that Clifford puppy played peek-a-boo.
Tails Are Not for Pulling-great book for toddlers to teach them to be gentle with animals.  I'm considering purchasing it since Monkey is at the stage that he likes to stomp on tails and poke in eyes.  He thought all the different pets were fun.  The book includes tips for parents to teach their toddlers how to be gentle with pets.
Before bed we read Adventures of Biscuit which is a bargain book from Barnes and Noble (we just barely bought it last week).  It includes 5 stories: Biscuit, Biscuit Finds A Friend, Bathtime for Biscuit, Biscuit's New Trck, and Biscuit Wants to Play.  Monkey got a TOTAL kick out of these.  He loves how Biscuit says "woof woof!" over and over.  He had to start saying woof in anticipation of me reading woof!  Biscuit is an I Can Read! My First reading level. 
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

I finished the Brown Bear tot book today!  I found that rubber cement + packing tape hold things that are laminated together.  Here's where we got the materials.  We printed the color book (I colored it and we laminated it so Monkey can learn colors-it's attached with sticky back velcro in case we want to put in one for him to color.  We also put in the heads and tails matching, the ABCs (we put ours in on two seperate things rather than front to back-I will post pictures when I can).  We also included the counting one.  We didn't include the shape one because we're putting it in our shapes and colors book I'm working on.  We're making the heads and tails for the felt board also.  I also am doing the sized bears for the felt board.  Monkey thought the lapbook was fun!

For anyone interested on what's going on with ME...I got the coolest paper in the mail today (FINALLY!).  Drum roll please....my Bachelor's Degree!  When I was pregnant with Monkey I found out that if I took 21 credits my last semester and 18 the one before I could graduate and walk 2 weeks after he was born.  I ended up on bed rest a couple weeks before Spring break (maybe only a week) on (32 weeks-37 weeks) because of preterm labor.  I had two incompletes to finish after walking.  My professor for the one was great and let me finish my paper and turn it in.  My other one agreed to let me come to a summer class but wouldn't allow me to nurse my baby or have breaks to pump so I asked what we should do.  She agree to let me do a homestudy course and two weeks later came back and said never mind.  I ended up taking a class from another University that is seen as an equivalent.  After finishing that (online) I STILL had to jump through hoops but the good news is that the paper is here and it's getting framed tonight.

Oh and I started a book I want to read besides the one I'm reading to help my hubby (which by the way I really don't enjoy that book!).  Here's a link to the book: Playful Learning.  If you have a local La Leche League go buy it from your group!  Procedes go to help the group (all the mamas are volunteers-the money goes straight to the library and any rental charges or other costs the group acrues).  I got it in a swap otherwise I would have bought it from my group.  I'm starting chapter 1.  Although we've made the decision to homeschool I think it would be of benefit to read it cover to cover still.

Tot School week 2!

Monkey is getting closer to 17 months by the day! You can see our themes for the year here.

This week we will be talking about Animals! I will update this post as the week goes on to add each day's posts. We are going to do a Brown Bear lapbook (found here). I got EVERYTHING laminated last week. My in laws own and run a copy shop so I got $60 worth of lamination cheap :)! I'm busily cutting everything but am proud to say I have 2 of the 11 done (those get us through Halloween). I have the Nativity one (it's in this book-Volume 3-the pictured one is Volume 2-I got it at the Thrift store for under $1) done and this farm animal one (see the first one on the page-Down on the Farm). We're also going to make felt board pieces from the Nativity and the farm animals. I need to get my felt board made (just need to wash and dry the felt and then I can glue it on my board-I'll post with pictures how I'm going to go about it in the next week or two). We have a LOT of books we want to read this week including starting The Jungle Book. Who can go wrong with a classic book under $5?

Monday: baby gym, bunnies, the letter c, animal sounds
Tuesday: polar bears, kangaroos, hippos (nice combo huh?)
Wednesday: "doggies", Brown bear
Thursday: Monkeys and Curious George (as you can see from previous posts we're HUGE George fans)
Friday: Library and chickens

Ducks and Dragons (and a Cow and Pig too)

It's been a while so I'm reading A LOT this week so we can catch up before our trip. We picked up a bunch of books from the library last week and plan to pick some more up today. When I was getting books I browsed a bit and found a cute book about a cow and a pig that are confused. I will talk about the dragon and duck books first.

There's a Dragon in my Sleeping Bag by James Howe
This is a book about imaginary friends (a dragon and a camel). The dragon was made up by the older brother to keep his little brother from sleeping in his room, eating at his place at the table, playing on the swingset, etc. The little brother "meets" a camel and the camel keeps the big brother from doing the same things. The camel and dragon become friends and later move to Boston and the brothers realize what it is to be brothers. This would be a great book for brothers (or sisters) that are having sibling rivalry issues but it's also a fun book for anyone.

The Ugly Duckling (we read the one I linked but the story is by Hans Christian Andersen and all of them are similar)
This is a story EVERY child should hear. It's about a duckling who was rejected by everyone because he was ugly. After many trials he grew up to be the kind of bird he loved the most-a swan. He loved himself at that point. This book is great for self-esteem. It teaches children they should love themselves no matter what others say.

The Cow that Went Oink by Bernard Most
We found this one by browsing at the library. I liked the title. It's about a cow that says "oink" and a pig that says "moo". All of the animals in the barnyard laugh at them because they're different (they laugh with their own animal sounds which my son thought was fun). They teach each other to say the opposite thing and have the last laugh. They ended up being bilingual. We thought this book was fun.

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Today we lumped caterpillars and butterflies together. We read 3 books:

The Caterpillar and the Polliwog by Jack Kent

This is a cute story about a caterpillar who brags to all the creatures around the pond about how she'll become a butterfly when she grows up. A fish tells a polliwog that he'll change into something else too. The polliwog thinks he'll become a butterfly too so he watches closely as the caterpillar goes about her transition and doesn't notice he's changing too. Great for little ones to learn about changing and loving who they are.

I Wish I Were a Butterfly by James Howe

This is a little bit longer of a read but it is about a cricket who doesn't like himself and thinks he is ugly. He has to learn to love himself instead of wishing he was a butterfly.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
A classic that just turned 40! This is an excellent board book that talks about the journey of a caterpillar starting out as an egg, eating everything in sight, and then becoming a butterfly. It's my son's favorite because it's fun to flip through.