Tuesday, July 27th: Reading Day!

We read a lot today and I also let Monkey watch his favorites...Blue's Clues and Curious George.  I love DVR and will totally miss it when we move for hubby's grad school!  Guess I better buy the DVDs soon!

We started by reading about the Letter M.

We discovered a series I think we'll really like at the library.  It's the Sound Box series.   We started with
My "m" Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure.  It uses rebus (or symbols/pictures with words or in place of words) to help get your child involved in the story.  Our first book we read with this method was Benny's Big Bubble.  We read it tons.  Monkey kept gravitating towards that book.  I ended up buying it for him because he loved helping me read so much.  It took him a few times through to recognize all of the words but that book also comes with flash cards to help you child identify the word and to help them see what it looks like.  Back to the book we read today though.  This book was great and had a list of the words with pictures in the back.  That's what we read before reading the book.  Monkey enjoyed helping me tell the story-he especially loved the monkeys in the story!

The other "M" book we read today was Muhammad's Monday and the Letter M Alphabet Friends by Cynthia Klingel and Robert B. Noyed.  It also had some rebus in it.  This is also seems to be a fun alphabet series.

After reading our M books we read Marley & Me: Marley to the Rescue! (an I Can Read! Level 1 Beginning Reader).  We said "mmm" after every word that began with an M to help Monkey learn the M sound (we're BIG fans of Leap Frog's Letter Factory).  I thought it wasn't as well put-together as most of the I Can Read! books so we won't be purchasing it but it was fun to borrow from the library to read together (the story seemed a bit choppy).

Mouse Tales by Arnold Lobel (also an I Can Read Book) was our next book.  Monkey thought the stories were funny.  The story was that a daddy mouse was putting his 7 babies to bed so he told them 7 stories-one for each of them but they couldn't make a peep after he finished.  The stories were silly and Monkey had some giggles.

Monkey started getting antsy so we read Morris and Boris at the Circus which I thought he'd get a kick out of but it was too grown-up for him to understand.  Maybe in another 6 months-year.

Monkey loves dogs so we then read Henry and Mudge Under the Yellow Moon (perfect for a Fall or Halloween theme-that's why I'm adding the label to this post).  It was a fun book and Henry and Mudge continue to be our favorite dog/boy pair.

We also picked up My Dog, Buddy by David Milgrim (the Amazon link SAYS it's a level 2 but it's totally a level 1 reader).  We enjoyed it and the simplicity of the book and are adding it to our wish list.

Then it was time for the actual book of one of Monkey's favorites The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss.  He has the board book (which he calls "Teeth Book"-the board book is condensed and starts with the "Teeth, you find them everywhere..." page) and has loved it so much he's ripped parts of it to shreds (yes that does mean he loves it-he only rips his favorites apart and then cries when we can't read them any more-he's no longer allowed to have books in his room because he's quite destructive).  We enjoyed the full-length version.

Monkey is also fascinated with ears which he calls "Glee-doughs" (NO idea why-he pronounces everything else so clearly except for hair which he calls "Wee" and our Wii which he calls "Amy").  We had to get The Ear Book by Al Perkins because of that.  The cover of the one we borrowed looks different but I assume the text inside is still the same.  It was a really fun and cute book.

We finished with another rebus book, Dog Wash Day by Maryann Cocca-Leffler (an All Aboard Reading Picture Reader).  It was also a fun book and we plan to read it again.  Monkey wasn't too interested in it at this point because an hour of reading is about the maximum we can do.

Halloween/Fall Wrap Up

I know...I'm behind on posting!  I WILL catch up!  I'll start out by posting about what we read/did today and work until I'm caught up.  We wrapped up Halloween today and will wrap up fall tomorrow so we can enjoy reading/learning about animals the rest of the week.

Something kind of new we started is learning about scripture stories. We're working in the New Testament now.  We are reading this book together.  It's great!  My uncle gave me the Book of Mormon stories one when I was little and I decided I wanted to buy the whole series.  There are simple pictures for each story with scripture references at the bottom of each caption.  There are about 2-3 pages per chapter/story.  Today we read Chapter 2: Mary and the Angel and learned about how Mary was told she would be the mother of the Son of God.  I enjoy using this book to share these stories to Monkey because he's pretty fidgety but loves to look at pictures.  It's a great way of teaching very young children that the scriptures are full of stories.  It's also a great way to start out our tot school because my husband and I decided that we want homeschooling to begin with a devotional (scripture, prayer, maybe a hymn or Primary song).  We believe that if we show our love of Christ and Heavenly Father that our knowledge of wordly things will also come easier.

We then read our Halloween books:

Sam's First Halloween by Mary Labatt.  We found this one at a thrift store and I thought it was a really cute little Halloween story about a "ruff-ruff" that wants Halloween candy.

Monster Manners by Joanna Cole.  We also found this at a thift store.  It is a really fun way  to teach about manners.  We will be reading this one A LOT.  Monsters are supposed to do the opposite of what humans are supposed to do but one monster likes being polite.  It was also fun in the spirit of finishing reading Halloween stories.

Alphatales H: Hide-and-Seek Hippo

Alphatales I: Iguana on Ice

The Most Scary Ghost by Joy Cowley.  A book from my childhood!  This is really a fun book about a girl that lives in a lighthouse and a ghost that hates the "wink wink wink" of the light.  He howls over and over "I'm the most scary ghost.  I'm the most scary ghost. Whippetty-whoo!"  It's sure to get a few laughs.

Mouse Monster by Joy Cowley.  This one is really fun.  It's about a mouse named Katie that takes leaves and makes a mask and costume to be a mouse monster.  Great read in the fall.

Halloween Cats by Jean Marzollo.  This is a really fun book (also from my childhood) about cats dressed up in different costumes.  Monkey really liked the bright pictures and repeating words.

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams.  I'll admit we didn't read this one today however it was read to us in a story time last week and I HAD to include it because it's such a fun story!  At the story time they got the different articles of clothing and had children stand with them and do the actions.  It was great!

Clifford's Halloween by Norman Bridwell.  Fun story with Clifford about his experience being a ghost for Halloween.

Max's Halloween.  Cute board book about Max carrying the candy and letting his sister say "Trick-or-Treat."

Mouse's First Halloween by Lauren Thompson.  Another cute board book to help kids not be afraid of Halloween sounds.

Happy Halloween Little Critter by Mercer Mayer.  Monkey LOVES Little Critter.  This was a fun book with flaps on the edges of the pages.