Books Books and more Books

We love books here. I don't know if you remember but we got Corbin a library card for his birthday. We use it weekly. We currently have over 40 books between the 4 of us out of the library. Most of them are kids books. We usually make at least one family trip to the library each week and sometimes the kids and I make another. Adam has been veraciously reading the latest young adult and middle level books. He is also finding new books for Corbin to fall in love with.

We are not pushing Corbin to "read" or learn his letters or write his letters. We are trying to let him lead and show us when he is interested. He is really into "reading" right now. I would say most of the time when he is "playing" by himself, he is reading instead of playing with his toys. He can recite whole books to us. Just recently he has shown some more interest in learning his letters and writing, so we have gone with it. We got letter fridge magnets, we found a great game on the computer (www.starfall.com), and we have been practicing some writing. At nap time or quiet time most of these days, he reads for 45 minutes before being allowed to play in his room, quietly. He has a HUGE stack of books in his bed with him. At night he has "quite time" books to read after we have left the room. Many nights I have had to go in and get the books he has fallen asleep with under the covers. We read to him all the time but we have had to limit our night time books to two books or we would be reading forever.

We refuse to let our kids watch or have any screen time while in the car. I use TV at home but not in the car. Corbin reads, draws, watches, listens to books on CD while in the car. He and Eliza have a book box in between them. They fight over books. I love it!

We have started two new things in the last couple of weeks too. Books on CD and Chapter books. He has listened to music or his Winnie the Pooh CD before going to bed for a while. But then he requested more. So we went to the library in search of some more books on CD. We came home with more Winnie the Pooh, which he carried and listened to for 24/7, it seemed. He got a few shorter books that were fun too but Winnie the Pooh definitely stuck out. He then started playing Winnie the Pooh and reciting word for word the CD. So Adam decided he was ready for a Chapter book. So obviously, he picked Winnie the Pooh! Corbin LOVED it. He started asking for Adam to put him to bed every night (which is unusual)! It's so cool to see Adam instilling his love of reading with Corbin. It truly has become their special bonding time. But since Adam (and me) would still like to switch each night, I found a book to read with Corbin too. We started with the Magic Tree House books. The first one is Dinosaurs Before Dark, perfect because we are also in a dinosaur phase right now. Except we read in one day! He loved it! My friend sent me a great link to websites on choosing chapter books for pre-schoolers. One website also said to just choose a book that is about 3 levels above your child's reading level, so a preschooler would listen to a book for a 2nd grader. But we haven't stopped reading picture books either, which is also important. His new favorites are Mo Willmens books, especially "Elephant and Piggy" books. they are AWESOME! We are excited about this new adventure!

And of course, Eliza is also starting to want to read more and new books! She was not as content to listen and look at books as Corbin was when she was a baby. But she is loving them now!

Last Wednesday was World Read A Loud Day. Adam celebrated it with his students by reading books to the younger kids. The kids then raised money to buy their library those books, and then donated the rest of the money, $200!, to the Whatcom Literacy Council! Awesome! Adam has been doing some pretty amazing things with his student and reading lately, especially in his Guys Read book club. I am extremely proud of him! He is Skyping with authors, tweeting with authors, and making videos to introduce authors! It's just awesome!

We celebrated it here, by making a nest and reading lots of books, which we do every day. But it was still fun.

And last but not least...

In which Eliza does yoga while learning phonics.