Write Your Heart Out

These little pocket sized notebooks are on sale this week at Walgreens for .19 with the in-coupon ad. I'm not a couponing expert. I depend on other bloggers to do that work for me! I don't know if this deal is only in St. Louis, but if you get a chance, snatch some of these up. The coupon is good for 3 per shopping visit. I thought I'd share 3 things you could do with these little notebooks. They have the notebooks, the top flip notebooks, and the mini composition notebooks to choose from.

1. Play restaurant. These notebooks just scream, "Take orders on me!" How fun would this be for your little waiter to tuck in his apron. Even a scribbler can write his orders out-- or even draw pictures.


2. Scribble it up while waiting. If you are stuck in a waiting room or even a lengthy grocery store line, this tiny notebooks pass time like crazy. Just don't forget to give your child a prized writing utensil to accompany the notebook. For my son, it's a pen that clicks. I recently gave Logan a notebook like this an a clickable pen while we were at a doctor appointment. The entire time I talked to the doctor, all I heard was "click. scribble. scribble. click. click." The doctor finally looked down and said, "My, he is proud of that pen!"

3. Make a diary. I stole this idea off my grandma-- but it's not like she has a blog. She should. It would rock. But I'd have to be there every day providing tech support.
So, when I was in fifth grade, my Grandma gave me a pocket sized notebook that she had covered with fabric and added decorations. It must have been the perfect size for fifth grade secrets because it's the only diary I have from childhood that is written in consistantly.

And let me tell you, folks, I wrote the really important things like this page

February 5, 1989
Dear Diary,
Today was one of the best days in sunday school. Mean old Mr. Eddie was pretty nice. The room was a total desaster but the girls and I cleaned it up and made the boys behave.

(Author's note: Mr. Eddie is really not mean or old. He's my facebook friend now, so I better be careful what I say about him!)

Go check for this deal at your local Walgreens. It's under 20 cents and it could be a great investment in your child's writing!

Back to School with Style

As a kid, I had my own sense of "style". I think I could relate myself to one of my most beloved book characters, Ramona Quimby. Remember when Ramona went to school with her pajamas on underneath her clothes because she wanted to be dressed like a fireman. Individuality. That's what made her Ramona Quimby. My individuality was often evident in my childhood clothing styles. My mom still tells a story of when she let me dress myself only to see me arrive at the bus stop in purple corduroys, red knee socks, and yellow jellies. I partially blame my mother for this style mix up-- after all, she stocked my closet with purple corduroys, red knee socks, and yellow jellies. What did she expect?
When your own kids come into the world, you start to see yourself reflected in them. I often wonder if my boys will inherit my sense of individuality in their clothing choices.

Logan already loves to add his own "flair" to whatever he is wearing. He usually goes for his glasses-- or a firefighter hat on special days!
As they grow up, I just wonder, will they want the "cool kid" hair cuts?

It looks like "cool kids" still need their mom to remind them they have a Popsicle mustache.
Or will they go all-naturale? Opting for the mountain man look?

hmmm, I don't want to be THAT mom who gets the phone call from the teacher about the stinky kid!
Maybe they'll go for a more "retro" approach?

Bible period dress is making a comeback, right?
They may find they like to dress in ways that reflect their personalities.

No one is left guessing that he is a laid back man.
I don't exactly know what personalities they will develop or what sense of style, if any, they will acquire. What  I do know, is they are my baby boys and I will love them no matter what they wear. (I may tell them to go change their outfit, but I will tell them lovingly).

And they will always be my 2 cute boys!

Back to school shopping season is approaching, and you may have to come face to face with your child's sense of style. It kind of takes me back to that beloved character, Ramona. Remember how she always wore crazy costumes? Yet, she always wanted people to know WHO was inside those crazy costumes. She wanted people to know it was RAMONA. I hope I can remember that the silly, cute, or crazy person I see on the outside, is just a small reflection of the person who is developing on the inside.

Disclaimer:  See that darling outfit Tyson is wearing in the last picture? I bought that at JcPenny-- which is kind of ironic, because I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and jcpenney blogging program, for a gift card worth $50. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

Books for the Big Apple

Two weeks ago, we had a Big Apple Adventure Themed Vacation Bible School at church. I taught in the Preschool Bible Story room with my friend, Dana. Her husband made us this awesome backdrop and taxi for our puppet shows.

Each day we had a puppet named Maxi, the taxi driver, introduce the Bible story. This was Dana's genius idea and the kids were so enamored by Maxi. The littlest ones wanted to give him high fives or hugs after the story every day. Even the 5 year olds had trouble remembering at times that he wasn't real. Logan loved, loved, loved VBS. His favorite thing was the new concept of "line leaders". He is obsessed and now asks to be the line leader everywhere we go in the house. Since Tyson is so much slower than him, it usually works out! He also loved the stories, songs, singing on the stage for family night, snacks, and of course, Maxi. I thought it would be fun to check out some books about Maxi's hometown, New York City!
I started my search for good city books at a really cool blog called Storied Cities. Storied Cities is different from most book review blogs because she focuses on a narrow niche. She exclusively reviews stories that are set in cities. This allows her to expose her kids to books that look like the world around them. How cool is that? For my kids, though, it has the opposite effect. It allows us to "go" to a place in the world that doesn't look like the world around us.
On Storied Cities we found books like:
The Night Worker by Kate Banks. Alex gets to accompany his dad to a job site in the city. The workers work all night-- surrounded by skyscrapers and starlight.
We recommend reading this one by flashlight.
The Teddy Bear by David McPhail Perfect example of the type of book you'll find reviewed at Storied Cities. Not necessarily about the workings of a city but set within a city. A little boy loses his teddy bear which is retrieved by a homeless man. The man carries it for a year and loves it. It is spotted by the boy on a park bench a year later. The boy faces the difficult choices of keeping his bear or letting the homeless man keep it. Such a deep book for kids of this age-- yet somehow they are able to relate.

Cordoroy by Don Freeman. We made the obvious connection to Corduroy after reading The Teddy Bear by David McPhail. In this classic story, Corduroy the bear explores a department store at night and then gets to go home with Lisa, a little girl who buys him the next day. I figured Corduroy's department store is somewhere near a big city, right?
Alphabet City In this Caldecott honor book, all the letters of the alphabet are hidden are the city. We had a lot of fun searching for the hidden letters and talking about things we see in our own neighborhood and things we might see in a larger city, like NYC.

Uptown We stumbled on this book in the library today. It's a book that describes the culture of Harlem. Great illustrations, great cultural references. It provided a lot of talk about Maxi the Taxi driver's neighborhood at lunch today. Who knew Max was from Harlem?

We love journeying to new places through the pages of books. What book journeys have you taken to a new geographical location?

Here's where I'm linking this week:

Book Sharing Monday

Kid Konnection

Back to School Collage

One of our favorite books this week was Follow the Line to School. . After reading this book, we created a scavenger hunt in our backyard using yarn. If you make your child a yarn scavenger hunt, chances are you'll have a wad of yarn to go with it. (Sometimes I like to talk in LauraNumeroff).

We used our wad of yarn to create a back to school yarn collage. First we cut out pictures of school supplies. There are many, many ads with these pictures available right now! Then we glued the pictures to a piece of construction paper. I snipped the wad of yarn into pieces and we dunked it into a watered down glue mixture. After it was gooey (or gluey?), we strung our yarn around on top of our school supply collage.
We loved the art work in Follow the Line to School and it inspired our line collages.

I also thought this school glue paint  at Almost Unschoolers would work for  follow up activities to any of the follow the line books. Since we picked up Follow the Line through the house at the library, we may try out this project next!
I'm linking our art project up here:

Follow the Line Scavenger Hunt

Follow the Line To School by Laura Ljungkvist. Follow a line as it weaves  left to right across a page, highlighting  letters, words, and numbers as it goes. This book is a wonderful artistic introduction to a full day at school. 
The artwork is gorgeous. There is so much to look at one each page, yet every illustration is clear. The line moves left to right across a page, highlight letters, words, and numbers as it goes. The potential for vocabulary development is available every time you re-read the book. I feel like it's one of those books you can read with your child as he grows.
I found this interview with Laura Ljungkvist at The Book Chook I love that she creates her artwork with her daughter and uses her daughter's artwork in her books. How cool is that?
The Book Chook must be a fan of Ljungkvist, because I found other Follow the Line reviews on her blog as well. Check them out here. I know I've already put one on hold at the local library.
Review of other Follow the Line Books
After reading Follow the Line to School, I created a yarn scavenger hunt on our back deck. I began by weaving yarn all around the deck. If you have a nice level backyard (I do not), you could just use spots in your yard. At various points around the deck, I attached a clothespin on the yarn. This allowed us to play the game in several different ways.

When your kids are 1 and 3, it takes a little practice to figure out how to walk and hold on to a line at the same time. Our first time around we just walked around following the line. It was actually quite a hit all on it's own.

Before we went around the line path again, I clipped the letters to Logan's name in order. As we found a letter, he got to unclip it and name it.

After finding all the letters, we put them together to spell his name. He loved putting his letters in the right order!

Finally, we did a little review of the book Follow the Line to School. I wrote a "clue" on the front of each card. These clues were descriptions that I copied right out of the book. Like, "Pick out a book and hear a story." On the back, I wrote the correct location at school. Like, "Library"

At each stop, I read the clue and Logan guessed the place at school. He was actually pretty good at it, since we had just gone to Bible School... and we've read the book a lot this week.

If it wasn't HOT here, we would have enjoyed the book outside but we were ready to head back in after this.
If you want a fun way to talk with your child about the beginning of school, play this school clue game. You don't want your kid to be "clueless" about the first day of school.

I'm thinking this will be an often repeated activity. Any suggestions of other things I could put on my line?

I'm linking this up:

Wordless Wednesday: The Sleep Stealer

I'm not going to be completely wordless, sorry. I need some suggestions, friends. What "must have" apps would you recommend for my new toy?
I'm looking for
 great educational apps for under 5s.
 Ebook recommendations, especially kid lit.
Couponing apps for me
Recipe apps for me
Do you have any suggestions?
I'm linking up over at 5 Minutes for Mom.