What My Child Is Reading–Best Books of 2011

Since our reading week was heavily dominated by a zillion of Fairy Magic books (which, thankfully, I don’t have to read), I decided to dedicate this last post of the year by putting together the list of our favorite books of 2011. I was motivated by one of my faithful WMCIR participants Ready, Set, Read, but she was focusing on the books published in 2011. I will focus on the books we read and loved in 2011. For reference, my daughter is now 5, an avid and very fluent reader. We still read together every night, and we read together all of the books I am reviewing here.

Best fantasy books – Catwings series by Ursula Le Guin. We love both reading them and listening to the stories on CD. I am looking forward to Anna reading other stories by Ursula Le Guin one day, since she is one of my favorite fantasy writers.

Best books about animals – shared by Life-Size Zoo and Out of Sight. Both books are interactive, full of information and have fantastic photography.

Best (quirkiest and funniest) math book – 365 Penguins. We took it from the library several times, and I see us doing it again when daughter is a bit older.

Best geography book – Around the World with Mouk. Engaging illustrations, interesting story lines and a lot of details. It’s followed closely by Follow the Line Around the World, but the story is lacking here.

Best poetry book – You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You series and any other book by Mary Ann Hoberman. We love her books and I grab them as soon as I see a new one.

New author we love – Julia Donaldson. We started with The Snail and the Whale and loved every single book we read by her.

Most requested book – Rikki Tikki Tavi. Anna specifically liked this version that I linked up to even though she did read an original version that we had at home as well.

The book I most enjoyed reading aloud – Jenny Linsky stories. We still have a couple in this series we didn’t read, and I am planning to catch up on them in 2012.

The book most recommended for home library – A Family Treasury of Little Golden Books. This is a great buy, especially if you have multiple children under 5. This is a great collection that will last for years. 

Your turn: What were your favorite children books of 2011?

Thank you everyone who participated in WMCIR link ups of 2011! Happy New Year and see you next week “on the other side”

Toy Winners of Christmas 2011

It’s funny that before Christmas my normally conservative husband was overflowing with worry that our daughter doesn’t have enough Christmas presents. That cracked me up a little, since I am usually the one “spoiling her rotten”. She was definitely not lacking in gifts from friends and family, even though Santa didn’t fulfill her fish for an “iPod with games”. Instead he brought each of us a hexbug nano, and papa showed her how to build labyrinths out of our wooden blocks for hexbug races. My husband was clearly in cahoots with Santa Claus, since he built an enclosure for hexbugs (it can be taken apart) in advance.

Anna had asked for Snap Circuits Jr when browsing a toy catalog. I told her that the toy is marked as 8+ and she has to wait a couple of years for this even though I was very tempted reading several reviews of this set. Imagine her delight when our best friend who is practically her surrogate uncle gave her one for Christmas. She was beyond herself with joy and proved me wrong by building a lot of circuits on her own by now.

Anna was begging for this Merry Christmas Scratch and Sketch since she saw it in the store in the beginning of December. She even began to save money to buy it on her own. Considering that she doesn’t get a regular allowance, this would take her a long time, so I made a suggestion to grandparents. Of course, her wish was granted, and she was very happy with this gift. By the way, the shirt came from her German aunt and uncle together with a gardening kit, coloring books and a small Lego set.

And… ta-da… by far the most engaging present (at least on Christmas Day) that came from me – Klutz Fabulous Book of Paper Dolls. Anna spent hours playing with these paper dolls and changing their outfits (her quirky sense of style always makes me smile). I am a little doubtful as to how long the dolls will last – they could be a little more robust, but so far so good. You can also see wooden train stations made by papa as an extension to her existing train set. She loved them and new trains as well, but they didn’t quite make to the most played yet.

I couldn’t help sharing my favorite among Anna’s presents – Blokus Duo. We love games and have a lot of them at home, so I couldn’t quite convince my husband that we need to get Blokus. I was thrilled that one of Anna’s best friends (or, rather, his father) gave it to Anna. It’s a perfect fast strategy game where the winner is often not known until the game is over. Very clever, and we all enjoyed playing it. Interestingly, I am winning against my husband and keep losing to Anna, probably because I am trying to teach her to make smart moves.

Your turn: What presents were winners in your homes this year?

Merry Christmas!

What My Child Is Reading–Christmas Books Part 3

Merry Christmas! Excitement is in the air and in the books we read together this week. I was able to get some of the books recommended by my blogging friend – you can recognize some of your books in an Amazon widget above. However, I decided to share some other favorite Christmas picks of the last two weeks.

I always save ’Twas the Night Before Christmas to December 24. There are so many versions of this book, we actually owe three different ones. However, Anna and I both love the Tiger Tales edition illustrated by Kat Whelan. Granted, action is moved to a world inhabited by mice, but in our family we happen to love mice, and who can resist magically sparkling and glittery pages. The book is really well done, and I definitely recommend it as an addition to your library.

I selected The Christmas Alphabet book by Robert Sabuda not for the story, since there is none, but for amazing pop-ups that made my paper-loving husband go ooh and aah inspecting each page. Anna enjoyed the book too even though she couldn’t quite appreciate the level of mastery required to create these paper marvels. The book is now on sale on Amazon for $9.18 – an amazing bargain considering how expensive it must be to produce. I am very tempted!

I stumbled upon My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel accidentally, but this book was one of my personal favorites of this Christmas season. In the book the main character makes a very specific wish, and Santa really comes through this year. However, the narrator quickly learns, “be careful what you wish for” lesson when he spends his days freezing outside, eats fish for breakfast and takes icy baths. This is an entertaining story for kids and far more funny read for adults.

I wrote about How the Russian Snow Maiden Helped Santa Claus last year as well. This book belongs to our home library – I was lucky to get it through paperbackswap.com exchange. Both Anna and myself really enjoy this cross-cultural book that pairs up characters from Russian Christmas tradition (Father Frost and his granddaughter Snow Maiden) with a very American Santa Claus. I will not give away more, but it’s a very enjoyable book (It also teaches a few russian words given in English transliteration).

Celebrate Everything

Even though our crafting didn’t really happen this year, we’ve been enjoying the season.

The tree is ready, the presents are all wrapped, and Anna is all excited about Christmas morning. I admit that I am excited too!

Anna went on her very first field trip on a “real school bus” with her winter camp and tried skating for the very first time. Too bad that we were not there to take a picture. We also went to San Jose “Christmas in the Park” and enjoyed beautiful animated displays there as well as in our own neighborhood.

Anna is taking her responsibilities of an “official candle lighter” of Hanukkah very seriously. It’s neat that Hanukkah overlaps with Christmas this year!

We had a few of Anna’s friends over for a “Hanukkah winter party”. I read the kids the story of Hanukkah, we decorated cookies, played a dreidel and made Christmas tree ornaments. Interestingly, everyone knew how to play dreidel – they learned it in school together with a song to go with it.

I am very grateful this year – for my family, my health, my friends and for having enough for all we need and for most of what we want. I am truly blessed.

Yummy Holiday Traditions

We are lucky to have friends who open their house in December to their friends for a cookie decorating party . We went since Anna was born, and it is fun to see how her decorating skills evolved over time. As I recall she was only interested in eating the decorations when she was 2, decorated one cookie when she was 3 and maybe decorated two or three last year. This year she was on a roll and spent a good hour and a half carefully decorating about a dozen cookies (I took this picture in the middle). Ironically, she is not really interested in eating them, she generally likes only baking goods containing chocolate. I am very grateful to our mess-tolerant friends (who, by the way, don’t have children) – Anna’s decorating station was a huge mess despite my best efforts.

Another tradition is a gingerbread house decorating that is hosted by dad of Anna’s very first boyfriend. She knew D since they were about 9 months old. This is an event just for two kids and their dads. To be honest, these kids had better times in their relationship with each other, but they still enjoyed getting together for a gingerbread event. Dads helped with the assembly and the icing, but kids decorated their houses on their own this year. Anna is mightily proud of her gingerbread house!

Week In Review–December 18, 2012

Thanks to everyone who joined Afterschool last week! There were so many good ideas. I was especially entertained by a cute story behind this mini gingerbread house with an important lesson for kids and parents.

Afterschool linky will be hosted by Kelly at Little Wonders’ Days this week and then we will take a Christmas break. Please drop me an email or a comment if you want to join as a host of Afterschool blog hop.

School. It was the last week of the school year, and Anna was having a blast. There were a lot of winter celebrations. I was amused when she brought home a self-made dreidel and dreidel game instructions as homework. On Friday they had a pajama day, read The Polar Express, and got an icy letter from Santa Claus. She is already missing her teacher.

Afterschool. There was a lot of afterschool writing this week. One day Anna wrote a list of all things she could do on her own, where I contributed some ideas and spelling. One of the things that she wrote down is “to do a worksheet”. She keeps working on “First Grade Math for The Gifted Student” book, and I was impressed that she could figure out the solution for making 30 cents in different ways problem. Just a few months back it would have been impossible, since she just couldn’t understand the conversion of coins to value. She also went for her belated five year check this week. I was relieved to see that she is still on the chart for growth (13%). I almost expected her to be below the norm, since she is really tiny compared to her classmates.

Places we are going. We enjoyed some good weather this week and spent some time in our local park. We also went to Anna’s classmate’s house for dinner. A and Anna are getting to be good friends, and we really click with his parents. Anna also enjoys attention of A’s little sister and gets to play a “big girl” part. It’s fun to see the kids getting along so well and playing together without any need for supervision. They are growing up!

Christmas prep. We were busy this week finishing shopping, wrapping presents, and making and writing Christmas cards, Anna was hard at work making her own cards for her grandparents and for her uncle. This year I didn’t have to cajole her to write them – she was quite willing to write her messages. She was wishing “lots of presents” to everyone. I wrote about 25 cards, about the same number is still left to go, but the goal is to finish all Christmas prep tomorrow!

What My Child Is Reading–Hanukkah Books Preview

This year Hanukkah overlaps with Christmas. In our secular household we celebrate both, so I will share the books we will be reading during Hanukkah (it starts on December 20) with the hope that maybe you can still find them in the library. This week we read another batch of Christmas books together (one or two each night), and Anna was powering on through Daisy Meadows Fairies books.

I was glad to get A Family Hanukkah by Bobbi Katz again from the library. The book is long, and could be about Christmas celebrations except different food choices and a dreidel game. But it does include a good description of the story of Hanukkah – something that I failed to find in most of Hanukkah books we read last year. It also explains the tradition of lighting a Menorah.

It’s a Miracle! by Stephanie Spinner is my favorite Hanukkah book. I think this year we will split the reading into 8 nights, because otherwise the story gets really long. Every night after the candles are lit, grandma tells a new story to the main character. The first story is about a young girl who dreamed to become a rabbi, then there is another one about a soldier who convinced other families to pray for his sick wife, etc. It’s a good read, and there is a surprise in the end.

The Borrowed Hanukkah Latkes by Linda Glaser/Nancy Cote belongs to our home library. The story focuses around attempts by a young main character to involve their elderly neighbor in Hanukkah celebration. It doesn’t explain why Ms Greenberg doesn’t have anyone to celebrate with, but it’s not really important for the story line. As an additional bonus, there is a latkes recipe in the book. Here is an important tip from me – lots of oil and a really hot pan!

The Best Hanukkah Ever by Barbara Diamond Goldin/Avi Katz is a pretty entertaining story of a family who listens to their rabbi’s advice of selecting “a perfect gift”. They all think hard about what their gifts will be. A lot of unhappiness is ensued until the problem is solved through the wisdom of a child. It’s a fun read, and the book is not hard to follow for younger kids.

Pins and Sequins Ornament

I found this craft through Crafty Crow and was intrigued by how different the process was from a usual color-cut-glue approach to children craft. I already had sequins (not as pretty but good enough) in my craft cabinet, so it was an easy setup and easy demonstration, and I was amused to see how long Anna stuck with this project – way longer than her usual attention span for art projects. She even asked to do another ornament to give to our neighbors, but I will definitely go with a smaller ball next time! What I like about this project is that it’s such a good fine motor skill practice – first putting tiny sequins in order on the tiny pin, and then sticking them into the ball. Just the right amount of challenge for my 5 year old, and the results are prettier in reality than in these photos.

Week In Review–December 11, 2011

School. Anna missed 2 days of school this week due to her pink eye infection, but we got her homework, and she also did this ornament as a Christmas gift for her teacher. It was a multi-step project with waiting for glitter glue and glitter paint to dry, but it turned rather nice. Anna adores her teacher, and we had an interesting parent-teacher conference on Tuesday. Mrs J acknowledged that Anna came to school with full knowledge of kindergarten curriculum and beyond. She gave her full year evaluation that had perfect scores in almost all categories. We asked if it would make sense to “skip” Anna, but Mrs J advised against it. According to her, we would have to skip her 2 or even 3 grades to be academically challenged, but the social challenges that come with this jump is much bigger. Besides – why would we want to shorten her childhood? She loves school, enjoys her classmates and thrives where she is. It just makes me rethink how we want to spend the time outside of the classroom – she definitely doesn’t need more academics that she is already getting.

Afterschool. We took things easy this week. Anna read through a dozen of fairy chapter books and a variety of Christmas books. We celebrated Saint Nicholas day on December 6. Little Wonders’ Days had a terrific idea of leaving a letter for Santa with a shoe. Anna was delighted to see that her letter disappeared, and instead her shoe was filled with chocolate. She wished for a “candy cane, a magic box that makes wishes come true and an iPod that plays games”. Let’s just say – candy cane it is, and maybe Santa has to come up with his own ideas for another present for her.
Work has been busy-busy. I expected December to be more relaxed except performance reviews, but pressure seems to be coming from up above and everyone is feeling the heat. I am really looking forward to my Christmas break that starts next Friday, but a little bit worried about the things that will be left over and new things that will be piled up come January 2. Most of my team is taking only one week break, and some have no break at all, so I am delegating to them as much as I can.

Places we are going. It was a busy week once Anna recovered from her pink eye. On Thursday night we went with friends for a drive through a  park nearby that hosts an amazing Christmas lights display. On Friday we went to a cookie party in the neighborhood. Last year Anna was hanging on to me for dear life. This year she was delighted to see some of her classmates there and was off with them until I retrieved her to go home. Yesterday we went to a birthday party for our friend that had many kids as well. Anna really enjoys company nowadays and loves to play with other kids whenever she gets a chance.

Christmas prep. Of course, we are busy preparing for Christmas. The tree is all set up, the house is decorated, and look how my husband’s Christmas village grew! He also put the lights inside of the houses, and this display looks fantastic in the evening. We did holiday shopping for a Holiday Wish Tree Child, but otherwise we are not exactly on track with my carefully laid plans. That’s OK, I’d rather stay as relaxed as I can, especially during the last crazy week at work.

Come and share your Afterschool adventures with Afterschool blog hop. It's hosted this week by Julie at Just Playin' Around. 

What My Child Is Reading–More Christmas Books

It was a very busy week at work for me as you could see by silence on my blog. However, our reading program continued “as planned”. On Monday Anna and I went to the library and she chose about a dozen book from Fairies series by Daisy Meadows. I am not a big fan of these books, but I am glad that she is not scared by Jack Frost and his goblins any longer. She read all of them in one day when she was home sick with a pink eye and kept reading them on and off all week. She also always picks one or two Dr Seuss books to read too when we come to the library. And here are some of the best Christmas books that we read together this week.

We love Julia Donaldson books, and I was trying to get Stick Man for quite some time. This week I was lucky, and it was definitely my favorite of the week (Anna was very sad about the misfortunes of the main character at first). The verses read well, and the illustrations by Axel Scheffler are beautiful. The story has great twists and turns and, of course, ends well. The good news about this story that it can be read at any time of the year even if it does have a Christmas ending. And if you are in a crafty mood, here is option 1 for older kids and option 2 for a younger crowd.

The Nutcracker Ballet by Vladimir Vagin is a book from our own library. We have several Nutcracker books, but this one is my favorite and closest to the original ballet flow. I asked Anna if she wants to see The Nutcracker this year, but she was not interested, she is still afraid of Mouse King death scene in San Jose interpretation. However, she really liked the Prima Princessa Nutcracker DVD that we won in a giveaway at Mama Smiles. I enjoyed watching this program with her – it’s sort of “Nutcracker Cliff Notes” for young ballet lovers. We followed the movie by reading this book before bed.

We read The Baker’s Dozen: A Saint Nicholas Tale by Aaron Shepard on December 6, since we celebrate Saint Nicholas Day in a German tradition. The book doesn’t really focus on Saint Nicholas, but it is gorgeously illustrated by Wendy Edelson and communicates a message of giving pretty well. A perfect complement would be baking and decorating St Nicholas cookies, but Anna doesn’t like icing on the cookies. I saw a nice St Nicholas peg doll here (mom made). Oh, and Anna was delighted to see her Santa letter to disappear on the night of December 6 and her shoe filled in the morning with Christmas chocolates and a pretty ornament.

We loved Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney when Anna was younger, but we missed this new edition to the series last year. As all other Llama books, this one is a cute book for young children, and it’s kind of sad that my daughter informed me that this is a baby book, she seems to be growing up so quickly. I love illustrations in the series and facial expressions. The story also reminded me to slow down and take a break when needed before I myself throw a tantrum over business and stress of this holiday season.

Week In Review–December 04, 2011

School. I wasn’t involved in Anna’s school this week, since I was traveling all week, but she enjoyed coming back from her Thanksgiving break to her friends and her teacher. She again had an extended homework with a request to write about our holiday tradition. She managed to remember an Advent calendar as a tradition, since she got three different ones this year.

Afterschool. Anna was pretty busy this week. There are crafts galore in her afterschool program that she attends three times a week, a gymnastic class, and a playdate. She also did some crafting at home with papa – she wrote me an adorable birthday card where she was wishing me “lots of good presints” and an awesome birthday. As always she read a lot too.

Places we are going. I was in Vienna this week, a city I’ve never been before. It was lovely, but I’ve only seen it after dark, since my days were spent in work-related activities. I really want to go back one day, because it’s very beautiful. I came back on Friday afternoon. Yesterday the weather was beautiful, and we went for a hike. A lot of fowl come to our lands for the winter, and we saw a lot of wild life during our hike. Unfortunately, another place that we visited yesterday was an Urgent Care Clinic, where I had to take Anna for pink eye symptoms that she developed in the afternoon. She got antibiotic drops, and I keep fingers crossed that she is better today and that she can go to school tomorrow. Oh, and I also hope that we won’t get it too – pink eye infections are nasty business!

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What My Child Is Reading–Christmas Books Roundup

I enjoy reading Christmas books with my daughter. There is so much magic and mystery in the season that even my otherwise logical daughter gets into the mood and starts writing to Santa. I am going to review some of our favorites in the next few weeks. I was traveling this week, so apologies for not responding to WMCIR posts from the last week. I will try to catch up!

We bought Advent Storybook by Antonie Schneider illustrated by Maja Dusikova3 years ago, but only last year Anna could  really connect to the stories. I like the approach of the book – short stories for each day of the month. It’s a nice addition to our usual nightly reading. Majority of other books on my reading plan are secular books, but this one will help us stay with A Reason for a Season theme. The only problem is that Anna got into our seasonal books some time in August, so she wasn’t too excited to read a familiar book now.

I saw Snowflake Bentley written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin before, but I didn’t think Anna is old enough to appreciate the story. What makes this book so special though are illustrations by Mary Azarian. The story is pretty fascinating, especially for the modern day and age of digital photography. It was hard for Anna even to imagine the camera and the process that was used by Bentley to photograph the wonder of snowflakes.

Snowmen at Christmas (part of the series by now) is a book that we don’t own but like enough to get out of the library every year. The story is better suited for preschoolers, but, just like in the other book, illustrations by Mark Buehner make the book magical. I am hoping to extend both this book and Snowflake Bentley by art projects later in a month. We also read a lovely book from our own library called Little Bear’s Special Friend.

Another new book in our seasonal library is Christmas Treasury. As you can guess from the title, it’s a collection of beautifully illustrated classic Christmas stories. Some of them, such as The Little Match Girl, are somewhat modified from their original content. I remember this story as the saddest I ever read in my young childhood, but perhaps I just couldn’t quite connect to the fact that she went to God when I was reading it as a young child raised in an atheist family.