Reading Aloud To My Elementary School Child

The munchkin's school offers an optional independent reading program called The 100 Book Club. In the elementary years, students work toward a goal of a specified number of pages, not 100 actual books. It's a great program, and we support it, but this year, we've opted out. Here are my reasons for doing so, and a description of what we're doing instead.

The 100 Book Club program allowed students to read anything they chose, as long as it was at an appropriate level. My daughter's books of choice are The Cupcake Diaries and graphical novels like Diary of A Wimpy Kid. Nothing wrong with those books as entertainment, but they don't stand up to classics that I might choose for her. I wanted more balance between my daughter's choices and the classics.

Another issue for us was that it created a sense of pressure. The homework load is heavier this year. We are involved in a program of daily Bible reading for Sunday School. The munchkin has piano practice obligations and tennis lessons and practice. We ask her to do a daily chore. There are days when we barely get everything done by bedtime, and then I was saying, "You've got to hurry up and get in bed and start reading or we'll never get in all of the pages for 100 Book Club." This seemed to thwart the whole idea of reading for pleasure.

Finally, we were both missing our summer tradition of my reading aloud to her. We both treasure those quiet, cuddly moments when the world can fall away while we get lost in a story together. I read books to her that are harder than what she'd choose, and she is learning to love great literature this way. So far, I've read most of the Little House on the Prairie series, The Secret Garden, and Black Beauty. There are real benefits to reading aloud - besides stirring a love for literature, it allows the reader to model good prosody which improves comprehension and fluency. (The importance of prosody) Reading aloud can nurture a wider vocabulary, especially if you read books that are beyond the child's current reading level.

I love reading with my munchkin. I have a degree in English and secondary education, and while we chose not to homeschool, I still want to employ more of my teaching skills with my own child. Since reading is NOT the munchkin's first love, then there is no better thing I can do for her, educationally, than to use my own expertise and love for books to nurture her literary growth.

So, that's the why of it all. Here's the how. We've set a few goals. The munchkin will read 7 books of her own choosing this school year, apart from the reading she does for school assignments. She's already read 3. She will read two books of my choosing. I have chosen Pippi Longstocking and a non-fiction book, Case Closed?: Nine Mysteries Unlocked by Modern Science. I am reading to her the following books this year:  Julie of the Wolves, Peter Pan, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom is a book she is unlikely to encounter in school these days, and one I'd prefer to explain myself, anyway. At the end of the school year, when 100 Book Club participants are rewarded with an ice cream party, if we've met our own goal, I'll pick her up from school and we'll have our own ice cream party. We are already deep into Julie, and loving every minute. The munchkin gets into bed on time so that there will be time for reading and begs me not to quit at lights-out. I don't like to interrupt our reading with a bunch of comprehension questions or vocabulary explanations, but I will be following up each major section of the book with a few of those. We'll also map out Julie's path through the Arctic tundra and learn about Inuit traditions and tundra wolves.

If you'd like to read or teach Julie of the Wolves, here are several resources you might find helpful!

Listen to Jean Craighead George tell about herself and read an excerpt of Julie:

JCG's web page includes a biography, videos, and lots more

Find links here to help plot Julie's path through the Artic tundra

Facts about wolves

More facts about tundra wolves

About the Inuit

Lesson plans for teaching Julie of the Wolves

Spring Highlights

I've been delinquent in my posting, but here's a long catch-up post.

The photo above was taken at Callaway Gardens. We had a lovely weekend there in April, and we'll definitely be making return trips. The Butterfly Center was a big hit with the munchkin (and the grownups, too), and I'm hoping we can return in September for "Blue Morpho Month."

The munchkin is turning out to be a little tennis powerhouse! She entered her second USTA tournament in May and won second place - her second second-place win! While we were tickled with her playing, what I was most proud of was that she played through brutal heat and blisters on her hand with no complaining and was gracious to her opponents.

     I've been doing some experimental gardening.

Bell pepper

 Lessons learned:  spring vegetables don't stand much of a chance in the Georgia heat. The truth is, we only have two seasons here - summer and not-summer. My lettuce went limp, it was too hot too quickly for the radishes and carrots, and while the spinach gave us a few salads, it bolted by late April. I might try again in fall, but I won't fool with those vegetables in the spring again. So far, the peppers are coming along nicely, and the pole beans are blossoming. We got a few zucchini from our two plants, but one of the plants has succumbed to what I think is squash vine borer, and the other one isn't looking good. Lesson learned:  pest control is a daily task, especially if you're trying to do it organically.

And finally, we said goodbye recently to our sweet kitty, Sebastian. I miss the little warm bundle of fur that snuggled next to me all night long. But he was sick, and the price of loving an animal is not allowing it to suffer when nothing can be done.

As for snuggling, we have no shortage of warm furry bodies. Our big dog Bella is always good for a cuddle, and the new beagle, Mollie, would be a lap dog if we let her.

incorrigible

Adventures in Sewing

Maybe it's the new emphasis on self-sufficiency in our struggling economy. Maybe it's my tendency to want to do solitary creative things. Maybe it's because I grew up watching my mother sew. For whatever reason, I got a hankering sometime ago to learn to sew. So...

I asked for and got a sewing machine for my birthday back in November. Between the manual and lots of online tutorial videos, I've been doing pretty well, I think!

I made a bunch of these cute rice-filled owls. When they're heated in the microwave, they're so cuddly! We gave one to each of the munchkin's neighborhood friends for Valentine's Day. The kids don't seem to mind that they're a little wonky! It was a little difficult for a first project, but hey, I learned some skills and nobody feels obligated to wear it in public. (The tutorial is here.)

After the owls, I was ready to try an actual garment. So, I made a skirt for the munchkin. Again, I followed some online instructions, and it came out great!

To go with the skirt, I embellished a ready-made sweater with a little flower from the skirt fabric and made a matching sash. Cute, eh? I'm really happy to be able to make some skirts for the munchkin because so many that we find ready-made are so short.

For a play at school, she had to dress as Sarah Plain and Tall. So, I found a calico dress in a way-too-big size at Goodwill and turned it into a long skirt, paired it with a shirt we already had, and made an apron from some flour sack dishtowels. I think she looks pretty convincing!

 

 Actually, I'm thinking that this costume was a little too convincing as now the teacher is asking me to sew things for the craft fair. Hmmm.

Review of Stephen Mansfield's book Where Has Oprah Taken Us?

Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this book through the blogger reviewer program at Booksneeze in return for writing an honest review. I received no other compensation.

Stephen Mansfield’s book Where Has Oprah Taken Us? chronicles Oprah’s spiritual biography and some of the cultural influences that have made her audiences so receptive to her eclectic spiritual ideas. It exposes the conflicts between traditional Christianity and Oprah’s pastiche of beliefs drawn from widely divergent religious traditions. The premise is that Oprah, through her celebrity influence, has normalized the idea that religious truth is weighed more by how our feelings resonate with it than by scriptural evidence.

Mansfield is a talented writer and a man of faith. I do think this is a book worth reading, but I can only give it 3 stars out of 5 because I think Mansfield turns a judgmental eye in the wrong direction and in doing so, kills the appeal of the book for anyone except those who already agree with him. This is unfortunate and ironic since the author made such a point of identifying himself as an evangelical.

I believe that Mansfield is correct in saying that Oprah’s faith is not in accord with the teachings of historical Christianity, for all of her laudable good works. I think that he offers some eye-opening revelations about how Oprah arrives at her own version of truth, even if I also think he sometimes paints with too broad a brush. Before we pass judgment on Oprah, though, let’s get the board out of our own eye. Oprah hasn’t taken us anywhere except right down the road that we evangelical Christians paved for her.  As a young adult trying to find God in the midst of residual pain from an unstable childhood and sexual abuse, she found in Christianity a set of burdensome rules, not grace. While I heartily wish she had investigated Christianity further, we are remiss if we do not accept our own responsibility in failing to communicate God’s healing love to her strongly enough. 

What’s more, we ourselves ensured that her future audience would find her brand of "how does it make me feel" spirituality appealing. We have failed to teach our youth or our converts how to discern real truth from subjective emotion. We have fostered a culture of Christian entertainment that glorifies celebrity and the opinions of celebrities. We have embraced a cult of personality by elevating pastors and performers to unrealistic heights. We have baited seekers to join our club with the things the world finds appealing instead of offering real community and real substance. We were making all of these mistakes before Oprah’s rise to spiritual stardom. If Oprah’s brand of feel-good-self-actualization disguised as spirituality has found a foothold among Christians or led seekers astray, we must blame ourselves first.

Mansfield only gives the slightest of nods to the idea that the Church has been ineffective in offering living water to seekers such as Oprah. I think it deserves much more attention, and a more humble approach would certainly be more likely to convey our sincerity about our faith to Oprah devotees. I would love to see Mansfield turn his pen to the subject of what the Christian church might have done to produce a different outcome to the Oprah story. I don’t mean to absolve Oprah from her considerable hubris or her unfortunate choices, but I think we should remember that Jesus reserved his sharpest words for church folk. I think lots of church folk will read this book and find it right on the mark, enthusiastically highlighting in yellow all the parts they agree with that show where Oprah’s theology is all wrong. Sadly, Oprah’s followers will likely not rush to unite with those church folk after reading this book. It’s a shame. We “evangelicals” are great at talking to each other, but we’re often hopelessly inept at communicating with those outside the fold. The irony would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

Shake Your Buttah!

Click on the youtube video below for the soundtrack to this post.


It was raining. We were bored. I was checking out blogs and the munchkin was watching TV. Suddenly, I shouted, "We've GOT to do this!"

I don't think the munchkin even looked up.

"Tell Daddy I'm going to the store, and I'll be back in a minute."

By the time she said, "Huh?" I was gone.

I came back soaking wet but carrying a prize - a pint of heavy cream. And, well...a few more things. I don't know about you, but I've never, ever been able to go to the grocery store and buy only one thing. But, I digress.

"Do you remember reading in Little House In The Big Woods about how the Ingalls family made butter? Well, we're about to make butter."

"COOL!"

I found the idea at Houseful of Nicholes. It looked easy, and it was! We decided to try two methods and compare the results. For the record, I used ultra-pasteurized heavy whipping cream from the grocery store - no special brand. We put about 1/3 of it into a plastic container with a tight sealing lid and a clean marble. I gave it to the munchkin and said, "Shake this 'til you can't hear the marble anymore." She shook it all over the house, and we sang "Shake, shake, shake...shake, shake, shake...shake your BUTTAH! Shake your BUTTAH!"  It wasn't long at all before we couldn't hear the marble anymore. We opened it up and looked inside. We had whipped cream.

"Is that butter?"

"Nope. Now, you have to shake it some more until the buttermilk separates."

So she shook it all over the house for another several minutes until we heard sloshing. When we opened the container, this is what we found.

In case you were wondering, the container's not dirty. It's stained from the soup hubby takes for his lunches. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

We drained the buttermilk off and shook a little more, and drained more buttermilk off. Then we rinsed all of the rest of the buttermilk off and marveled at the miracle of butter!

We put the rest of the cream into the stand mixer. My results were pretty much exactly like the Nicholes'. (Check out her great pictures.) I knew we had reached the goal when the mixer started slinging buttermilk all over the kitchen!

Mix in a little salt, and you're good to go!

First Solo Kitchen Flight: Making Brownies

We were drying out from a trip to the neighborhood pool when the munchkin said, "Let's make brownies!"

"Why don't you make them?"

"Can I?"

"I don't know. CAN you?"

Pour in the water.

Measure the oil.

You have to hold your mouth just right to crack the eggs.

Ooops! Fish out the shell.

 

Stir.

Shh...don't tell. The eggs never did get totally mixed in...

Pour it in the pan.

Spread.

Lick the spoon!

I'd show you the finished product, but they're all gone!

The Summer Reading We Won't Be Doing

Reading is not my munchkin's first love. She'd much rather be doing something active like whacking a tennis ball or playing with the Wii, but I know how important it is for her to improve her reading skills over the summer. We've been trying to do some every day. I don't care what she reads, as long as she's reading. We've read recipes, game directions, cereal box labels, you name it. Yesterday, I thought, "Hey, let's look at some news sites on the internet. She'll not only be reading; she'll gain a better understanding of how our society works." I thought I'd better preview them first so I'd be prepared for her questions.

So, off I went to CNN. As I scanned the headlines, I imagined what she'd ask:

"Mommy, who is Anthony Weiner? And why does anybody care that some guy's engagement got called off? I think his name is Hugh Hefner?"

Okay, maybe CNN isn't the best site for an 8 year old. I'll try Fox News. They're conservative.

"Mommy, what's this about a lady named Maria Shriver crying with a mistress? What are they crying about? And there's that Weiner guy again. What does 'sexting' mean?"

I decided to scratch the plan to read the news. I'm not ready for her to know how our society works just yet.

My second EBIIT Hall of Shame Award will be shared by three recipients:  Arnold Schwarzenegger and Anthony Weiner for behaving shamefully while holding public office and the media channels who continue to report every sordid detail when there's plenty of real news to focus on. All three parties need to develop a little more propriety. Shame on all of you.

Does Your Child Take Piano Lessons?

Photo by thart2009

Over at my piano teaching blog, The Piano Studio, I've posted several articles that might be interesting to you if your child takes piano lessons. Hope you'll visit! There are more resources to come for parents of piano students, so I'd love to have you follow me there!

What Do Marshmallows Have To Do With Piano Lessons?

What Do Kids Do When They Practice Piano?

How I Became A Tiger Mom And Why

When Should You Let Your Child Quit Piano?

Caring For Your Piano:  A Guide For Piano Parents

Camp Superfluous

Happy

Sad

               For reasons I still can't quite fathom, I am paying good money this week to send my 8-year-old drama queen to...

drama camp.

 

Afraid

Confused

Angry

Surprised


Next stop, Broadway!

Healthy Breakfast Choices

Of these two breakfast menu choices, which do you think has less sugar?

1. a Krispy Kreme glazed donut

2. A bowl of Fruit Loops (1 cup)

If you chose the cereal, you'd be wrong! The donut has 10 gm of sugar and the cereal has 14 gm.

My daughter loves Froot Loops, and not the 1/3 less sugar kind. I've been giving it to her while at the same time denying her requests for donuts because, in my mind donuts are too sugary! I'm not saying donuts are a good breakfast choice, but I have to admit that the cereal I'm giving her hasn't been much better. Healthy breakfasts are definitely something I need to work a little harder on.

There are some good cereal choices out there. Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, Kix, and Life have earned good ratings from Consumer Reports for their low sugar content and whole grains. Scrambled eggs are always popular in my house, and I can make them quickly in the microwave. These high-fiber energy muffins are a make-ahead kind of thing, but they're a hit with all of my family. Add some fruit to these choices for a pretty good breakfast. Do you have some healthy breakfast options to suggest? Please share them in the comments!

Tip: Visit Breakfast Cereals Compared to compare the nutritional values of cereal from Kellogg's, General Mills, and Post.

Teaching Children Self-Control

One of the hardest things for parents to teach their children is self-discipline, but it may be even more important to their future success than IQ. I've been thinking a lot about it lately as I'm working on a post at my other blog, The Piano Studio, about parental discipline and piano practice. Watch for it on Wednesday. In the meantime, take 5 minutes and watch this great video that explains just how critical this skill is to your child's well-being and success.

If you have a child who takes piano lessons, you might be interested in my most recent post, What Do Kids Do When They Practice Piano? It's an interesting look at how piano practice differs from practicing in other arenas of life.

Piano Lessons For Twos and Threes?

Photo by crimfants

For more articles about piano teaching and piano study, visit my blog The Piano Studio!

I'm an independent piano teacher, and in the last couple of months, I’ve had a few inquiries from parents who were seeking traditional piano lessons for children 2 and 3 years old. I thought I would post some of my thoughts here as a resource for other parents of very young children.

First of all, kudos to these parents! They recognize the value of musical study and want to offer their children an early exposure to music instruction. I’m happy that they contacted me, even though I did not accept them as private piano students. Some teachers do accept students at this young age, and some are quite successful, but my personal preference is to start students at age 6 or maybe in exceptional situations at age 5. However, I want to be encouraging to these parents and to offer some information that will help them as they consider what path to follow. In many cases, I think they may not know exactly what I mean when I say that I offer traditional piano study. They just know that their child enjoys music and they want to provide her with every advantage. Sometimes, when I suggest a program such as Musikgarten or Kindermusik, I get the distinct impression that they consider those to be merely play experiences. On the contrary, I believe that these programs are excellent at providing an early foundation for piano study. Here are some things to consider.

In a traditional piano lesson, the child receives focused one-on-one instruction in how to read music notation and hone their pre-existing fine motor skills to produce sensitive, nuanced sounds. They are given assignments to work on independently at home, and these can include practicing, vocabulary, and written assignments in workbooks. We have fun, but it’s a goal-oriented endeavor that requires a large degree of focused attention and self-regulation, and it can be intense.  If you are looking for lessons for a two- to four-year-old child, my suggestion is that you consider either a group experience like Musikgarten, Kindermusik, Music Together, or Music For Young Children or pre-piano lessons with a teacher who specializes in music for very young children and has some training in that field. Why?

What's That Noise?

About a week and a half ago, we started noticing a strange whirring sound outdoors. At first, I ignored it, thinking that it must be machinery doing work somewhere out on the road. But it was constant and sometimes, loud enough that we could hear it inside the house. When the newspaper ran an article about it, we realized we were hearing an unusual natural phenomenon - 13-year cicadas. These harmless but noisy bugs have the longest developmental period of all N. American insects, growing underground as nymphs for 13-17 years, depending on which brood they belong to. We're being treated to the song of Brood XIX, which last emerged in 1998, and won't be heard again until MB is 21 years old. Read more here.

This video is a good example of the sound. It isn't quite this loud in our yard, thankfully.

School Project on the Seneca Tribe

The sun is shining, it's 60-something degrees, and it's Spring Break! Woo-hoo! You know it's spring in Augusta when the azaleas, the dogwoods, and the Golf Traffic signs are in bloom. Another sign of spring: school projects. Mary Beth's class has been doing a unit on Native Americans.

Yesterday, the two 2nd grade classrooms were transformed into a museum about Native Americans. Each child had researched a different tribe and prepared a report, a poster, and a model home. They had also made clay pots, weavings, and dream catchers. Earlier in the year, the students had written letters to the current governments of their tribes, and some had mailed back letters and information. Mary Beth's tribe was the Seneca, and they had mailed her lots of brochures. Too bad she didn't get the Creeks (Muskogee) since she's 1/64th Muskogee herself, but we enjoyed learning about the Seneca tribe! All of the parents came to see the displays. They were all very proud!




We made our longhouse by gluing bark and sticks to a structure made from a narrow shoebox and an oatmeal box cut in half lengthwise for the roof. We spray-painted it brown before putting the bark on. Our "hide" door was cut from a scrap of suede, and we found a doll-house sized bowl and basket and some tiny vegetables at the craft store. I tried to brainstorm how we could fashion some tiny lacrosse sticks since Seneca boys liked to play that game. But, Mary Beth said, "Mama, you're getting carried away."