Should Preschoolers “Do School?”

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Amy

I went to my first homeschooling convention this past weekend. I learned some good stuff, got lots of cheap used books, and bought a few new manipulatives for our school room.

I had a really good time. Most of the workshops I attended were quite informative.

Surprisingly, the workshop from which I got the least amount of useful and practical information was the one focused on homeschooling 3, 4, and 5 year olds.

Kind of odd, since this is the only age group within which I do homeschool, but whatev.

I think the reason for this is that lots of people hold very strongly to their opinions that preschoolers should not be “schooled” at all. That our society pushes too much formal learning onto kids too early. That preschoolers should do all their learning through play. That kids should not be pressured to learn letters and begin reading before kindergarten, or even later.

The presenter at the conference cited lots of information on the importance of play and quoted one article as saying that the optimal age for children to begin formal education is around age 8 (I think that was the age she said… it was somewhere around there).

So, needless to say, the presenter didn’t have much to say as far as suggestions for fun things to do in homeschool for preschool-aged kids. Mostly she just said “play.”

And that’s cool. I actually agree with her to an extent, though I was really hoping for some fun new ideas (I did get some from a session by a music therapist!).

I know that the most important ways for kids to learn in the preschool years are through play and being read to. I think art and music are also critical. And I do also believe that too much emphasis is being placed nowadays, in many settings, on teaching young children through rote memorization with things like flashcards and worksheets and drilling facts.

BUT, I also think there can be a happy medium. I think it’s okay to teach kids their letters and numbers and colors and shapes when they’re little. I think it’s okay to have a little bit of “school time” when kids do somewhat more formal learning activities, though I wouldn’t necessarily choose for these activities to be flashcards or worksheets most of the time (but occasionally these can be fun too).

I’ve spent the past six months or so trying to figure out how to do homeschool preschool in a way that works best for us. For me. For my kids. For our schedule. I’ve refined my “method” several times during this time. I’m happy with the way we do things now.

So in case you’re wondering, here it is:

I start by picking themes, or units, for our school based on what is going on around us or what my girls are interested in. Then I pick a letter to go with the theme. For example, we’ve done “G is for Groundhog” for Groundhog Day (still one of my favorite weeks), “L is for Leprechaun” for St. Patrick’s Day, and “C is for Clown and Circus” the week before we went to the circus. Recently we did “R is for Rainbow” and now we’re talking about weather and doing “U is for Umbrella.” Next up, by request from my girls, is “I is for Insect” (I would have done B is for Bug, but we already did “B is for Bunny” at Easter).

Our units last as long as I need them to, not just a week. Usually the length of time of a unit is dictated by how many books we have to read and how many days per week we do school. Sometimes external factors come into play too, like when we only had a week after “B is for Bunny” and “E is for Easter” (did two letters for that one, sometimes we get all crazy up in here) and before we went to the circus, so we did our entire circus unit mostly in one week. But I usually try not to rush through a unit.

Once I have a theme in mind, I search for books to go with it and put the books on hold at my library. I get lots of books for each unit!

Then I start combing Pinterest and my favorite homeschooling blogs (like this one and this one) where I get lots of free downloads. I find activities to focus on our letter as well as doing some counting, patterning, sequencing, sorting, etc. I print tons of pages, laminate most of them, and cut them up as needed. I have a slight obsession with my laminator and magnet tape.

I find a few craft activities for each theme and try hard not to over-manage their projects.

We do some experiments if applicable. Today we talked about clouds and the water cycle and experimented with using droppers to drip water onto a cotton ball to see how much water it could hold before beginning to “rain,” for example.

We “do school” several times a week, though not every day, usually in the morning.

We generally spend about an hour on school activities, sometimes a little more if we’re really into an art project or something.

We start our morning with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Then we do circle time, which for us consists of going over our calendar, talking about the weather, doing the nursery rhyme and/or song that goes with our theme, reviewing our letter and its sound, and talking about any other interesting info related to our topic. I have a white board with the letter, rhymes, and other facts written on it.

We read 2-4 books related to our topic each day at the end of circle time (I try to do a mix of fiction and nonfiction) and sometimes do felt or magnet board activities with them. My girls really love these, so we often do them repeatedly throughout the time we are focusing on a certain theme. For example, at St. Patrick’s Day time, we did a magnet board activity almost every day while reading “There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Clover” (and the same thing with “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick” at Easter time). The girls had the Old Lady and each of the things she ate, and they took turns placing her/them on the magnet board as I read the story.

Right now we’re reading Jan Brett’s “The Umbrella” and putting up each of the animals in the story onto the felt board as we read the story. Every. Day. They even play with the animals and the felt board when we aren’t doing school time!

After circle time the girls sit at their table and do various activities. Miss gets really excited about this part. Lass is sometimes less enthusiastic. This is where things get a little tricky for me, because each of the girls always wants to do what the other is doing, but Lass has a hard time with some of the things I have for Miss to do.

So I just try to have a good variety of things, with puzzles, counting, patterning, sequencing, sorting, and some writing practice. I only ask Lass to do the most simple prewriting activities and if she’s not into it, I let it drop. With other writing worksheets she just colors. It usually works out pretty well.

I have learned the beauty of the cookie sheet and magnetic tape or these colorful little round magnets. Magnetic tape holds puzzle pieces in place to keep perfectionistic girls from freaking out when they won’t stay just so. These little round magnets on various printed designs are one of Lass’s favorite activities to do.

The trick is to find activities that challenge them enough that they feel accomplishment, but not so much that they get stressed out and frustrated. That is my goal with all of the “school stuff” I have them do.

Sometimes I find the perfect activities for them (like the magnets for Lass). Sometimes I don’t get it right, like the time I had Miss adding by counting pictures and writing the number of the answer at the end. She had no problem counting and adding to get the right answer, and seemed to enjoy that part. But she wasn’t ready to freehand write the numbers in for the answers (she’s still working on tracing them), and she and I got quite frustrated by that one. For subsequent activities like this I have printed numbers for her to place in the answer space, or let her use numbered blocks, etc.

I try to keep our school time fun and minimize the frustration. If one of them is hating an activity and my coaching them on it isn’t helping, I usually try to set it aside and move on to something else or call it good for the day.

I don’t always get this right. Sometimes I start to think one of them is being lazy and not really trying to do something I know she can do. So then I start pushing her to do it. As you can imagine, this never turns out well. I usually end up mentally slapping myself and regrouping. Often I end up apologizing. I always end up reminding myself to try not to be a jerk.

But my point is, most of our day is spent reading and playing. The girls have tons of time for free play.

But they actually love having “school time” too. Miss asks for it frequently. They seem to enjoy the activities we do, the books we read, the crafts we make. They learn stuff. And so do I.

I like our balance. It works for us.

What are your thoughts on preschool? How do (did/will) you do preschool with your kids?

Field Trip – Elephant and Piggie Style

Posted on April 26, 2013April 26, 2013 by Amy

A few days ago, I started our morning by telling my girls we were going to the children’s museum to see Elephant and Piggie.

I case you don’t know, Elephant (Gerald) and Piggie (who doesn’t have another name) are the characters in a series of books by Mo Willems. We were introduced to Mo Willems recently by my Super Friend who gave Baby Sis the book “The Duckling Gets a Cookie?!” and a Duckling stuffed animal for her birthday. My girls loved Pigeon and Duckling, so the Easter Bunny brought them some Elephant and Piggie books. And, wonder of wonders, they love these too!

Needless to say, they were very excited when I told them we were going to see Gerald and Piggie and hear a new book “Elephants Cannot Dance.” They immediately rounded up all their books and started reading them (they have them memorized).

I managed to tear them away from the books so we could get dressed and make the 30 minute drive to the children’s museum with time to make several parking errors, fill a parking meter with most of my quarters only to realize that it had a 30-minute limit (you’re welcome red car that pulled in after me), finally find a place to park, and get inside, with time to spare before the program started.

The girls killed time with some construction vehicles,

mirrors and squishy toys and

vegetables.

It wasn’t planned this way, but we ended up meeting Super Friend and her husband and their kids for the show. Super Friend walked in with her kids, and her kids and my kids exclaimed simultaneously, “Our friends are here!!”

There was so much anticipation before the entrance of Elephant and Piggie.

They finally came in and…

Sat down.

Apparently the costumes they were wearing didn’t provide them with much ability to see, because both of them needed to be guided to their seats by a “handler,” and they did not get up again for the duration of the story time. At least Piggie waved a few times.

The girls were so excited to see them, they didn’t care one bit. I was the only one who was disappointed I think, becasue I thought E and P were actually going to read/act out the book.

The woman who did read it did a great job though and had the kids up and dancing and spinning and having a good old time.

We got to “meet” the immobile, mute Elephant and Piggie afterwards. It was a very stimulating experience…

The girls got to do a craft, making hula skirts out of paper afterwards.

While we were crafting, Miss got wise to the fact that it wasn’t really Elephant and Piggie there at the story time when she looked hard over at Piggie next to us and saw a gap in the costume at the neck. Some guy’s hairy neck was showing, and my girl figured that one out right smartly. Later she told me, “Mom, I don’t think that was the real Gerald and Piggie we saw today. I think it was just someone dressed like them.”

Afterwards the girls had lots of time to run and play with their friends and explore some of the rest of the museum.

We don’t go there enough. It has been about 2.5 years since we were there last, so neither of them remember being there before, but they’re already asking to go back.

We used up all of our usual school time to go there, so after we got home Miss asked when we were going to do school. Surprisingly she wasn’t that thrilled when I told her that our trip to the children’s museum was our school for the day.

It was a great “field trip.”

Groundhog Day Has Never Been So Fun

Posted on February 2, 2013February 1, 2015 by Amy

Groundhog Day has been my most favorite homeschooling unit so far. Apparently I dig groundhogs (pun intended, sorry).

So do my girls.

I have discovered the magic of Pinterest and my library for really bringing the fun to the topics we are covering in our school.

At the start of January, I decided that I was going to focus on units more than letters of the week, and just pick a letter that works with our unit. I’m not set on the length of time we stay on one unit. Most of January, other than the past week, was a Winter unit, with our letter being W.

This past week was a Groundhog Day unit focusing on the letter G.

My strategy for preparing for the units is to find good books on our topic and request them from our library. Then I comb Pinterest to find printables for all sorts of activities, some focused on our letter, some arts and crafts, some hopefully pulled from one or two of the books we’re reading. Then I wing it from there.

I found some really fun books for our groundhog unit.

These are the ones I used.

“Time to Sleep” was actually one I had for our Winter unit, but it talks about hibernating and has a woodchuck in it, so I included it this week too. It was fun for them to realize that the woodchuck in this story is the same as a groundhog.

The first book we read was “Groundhog Weather School,” in which the Weather Groundhog puts out a classified ad looking for more groundhogs to help him predict the weather around the country. He gives six criteria, with discussions of each of them, for candidates to consider before applying:

Various animals, such a a hippo, a monkey, and a skunk, check off the criteria they do meet, but then ultimately realize they don’t meet all of the qualifications. The girls really enjoyed going through each of the qualifications, repeatedly, for each of the animals, and disqualifying them at various points in the list. I left the list up all week and we discussed it many times while reading other books too.

I got lots of the stuff we used from DLTK Crafts for Kids, including the rhyme in the picture above, which is a song to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot.” I made up some hand motions for it and we sang it a few times each day after doing our calendar. The girls loved it.

Another thing we did every day along with our calendar and weather discussion was to judge whether we thought the groundhog would see his shadow if he were to pop up that day. Miss really got into this and did a great job thinking it through and making a prediction each day.

The DLTK site has tons of free printables for activities, games, and crafts. Another one we used from them was the Five Little Groundhogs felt board activity.

And of course we had to make their toilet paper roll groundhogs.

The girls just made these today, and both of them are sleeping with their finished groundhogs tonight. Miss even insisted that we make burrows for the groundhogs, so we glued pieces of construction paper into cylinders that the groundhogs could fit into and “pop up” as desired.

We did lots of the printables from the DLTK Groundhog Day section, like some of these, and these.

2 Teaching Mommies has awesome units that you can download for free and I used several of their Groundhog Day activities, like these:

I laminated the pages and added velcro so the pieces would stay put for my girls (and not get lost). I especially love watching Lass do activities like these, because she really shows how much she knows when she can do it in a fun and different way (if I just ask her questions, she often pretends she doesn’t know).

I added a few other fun things to round out our groundhog fun. We went into my bedroom where we could pull the blackout shades and have a large expanse of blank wall to do some shadow playing. We built a burrow with pillows and the girls took turns “popping up” and seeing their shadows. We experimented with moving closer and farther from the light source to see what happened to the shadows. And of course we practiced making some good old shadow puppets.

This morning the girls made their hypotheses about whether the groundhog would have seen his shadow. Then we checked out the website of The Punxatawney Groundhog Club to see what Punxatawney Phil saw (or didn’t see). We watched the webcast, which I thought would be really exciting. I wish I would have watched it first so that I could have automatically fast forwarded the first two thirds of it which was nothing but a looong procession of all the “Groundhog Officials” and introductions of all of them. There must have been 15-20 of them. The girls did get a kick out of it once they finally pulled Phil from his “burrow,” but even that was sort of lame. I’ll just be thankful that I didn’t wake them up at 6:25 to watch it live… Not that I would have done that.

Their favorite thing this morning was when I played this recording of the whistling sound a groundhog makes when it senses danger. We have been talking about how some people call groundhogs “Whistle Pigs” because of this. They really got a kick out of hearing how it sounds.

We had lots of discussions about what makes an animal a mammal, what hibernating is, what herbivores eat, what animals are predators of groundhogs, and how groundhogs set up their burrows. It was all quite fascinating, really.

And finally, it wouldn’t have been Groundhog Day without a groundhoggy snack.

Chocolate pudding cups, graham cracker crumb “dirt” (the other versions I’ve seen of this snack used either chocolate graham cracker crumbs or oreo crumbs, but this is what was in my cupboard, so we had lighter dirt), Milano Cookies, slivered almonds broken in half for the ears, and fudge applied with a toothpick to stick on the ears and make the face. Not quite as elaborate as some, but enough to impress my kids.

So that’s it. I kind of can’t believe how much fun groundhogs can be. I think I enjoyed them as much as my girls did.

Next we’ll do two weeks of V is for Valentine. We’ll also throw some President’s Day stuff in there before we go out of town in a couple of weeks.

Happy Groundhog Day!

All That I Hoped It Would Be

Posted on December 27, 2012January 11, 2023 by Amy

I have always tried my best to be a thoughtful gift-giver, and now that I have kids, my investment in giving good gifts has increased exponentially. I want them to love the gifts. I want their gifts to encourage lots of creative play. I want their gifts to be sturdy. I want their gifts to not be obnoxious. I have a lot to think about when choosing the gifts for my children for Christmas. Quality, not quantity.

More than the gifts, I really want my kids to get a lot out of the whole experience of Christmas. Putting up the Christmas tree, singing carols, going to see Santa, baking cookies, spending time with family, doing all the traditional things that bring such warm memories to my mind from my own childhood. We’ve had a great time doing these things the past few weeks.

For me Christmas morning is the culmination of all the holiday doings. It’s the time when all the build up about Santa and his magic comes to fruition.

On Christmas morning, I want my kids to be bursting with excitement and all the pure wonder that only children can express.

This year, Christmas morning was all that I hoped it would be.

It was waking up early with this little one and waiting for her sisters to come down while starting breakfast preparations.

It was finally hearing the big girls stirring upstairs and hearing their giddy anticipation as they rushed to see what Santa left for them, watching them search for the one thing they really, really wanted (The Big Snow White!), and then seeing the pure, childish joy when they found it.

It was watching and hearing them play with their Santa gifts while I finished making breakfast. What a joyful sound.

It was finally making creamed eggs (Miss called them “egg nugget” for some reason!) by myself without needing to call my mom for her “recipe.” I’ve never written down the instructions she has given me so many times over the years, though I say to myself that I will every time. I call her twice a year (on Christmas and Easter) to ask how to make creamed eggs and have been doing so since at least 2003. This year, I finally just did it myself. With Charlie Brown Christmas playing in the background, I made my roux, added my milk, salted and peppered, and stirred in my chopped hard-boiled eggs all by myself. I felt like such a big girl. My 3 year old did help, though. She told me I needed more salt.

It was the madness of opening the rest of the presents under the tree after breakfast.

It was loving watching my big girls’ different approaches to this process, with Miss tearing open every present that had her name on it, barely stopping in between to look at what she had just revealed, and Lass stopping to play for a while with each toy as she unwrapped it and leisurely making her way around to open each of her gifts.

It was seeing my older girls, surrounded by all their new toys, choosing to sit and read for a while.

It was taking a little bit of time myself to explore the wonderful new books on cooking my husband gave me – “The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft for Every Kitchen,” “Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking,” and “Twenty: 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook’s Manifesto” all by Michael Ruhlman, all Awe. Some.

It was all of these things and more.

It was joyous. It was magical.

I really think I love Christmas and Santa even more through the eyes of my children than I did when I was little myself.

When Grandma is a Children’s Librarian

Posted on October 25, 2012October 25, 2012 by Amy

We read a lot at our house. I mean a lot.

I read many books to my girls every day. We talk about what we read. Sometimes we even do little activities related to what we’ve read.

When we come to Grandma’s house, things get taken to a whole new level.

She brings home wonderful new books from the library, where she works as the children’s librarian.

Beautiful books that beg to be read over and over and over. Books that are so well written and illustrated that I actually enjoy reading them over and over and over.

Then Grandma does one better.

She busts out the felt board with all sorts of laminated animals and vegetables and fruits to go with classics like “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?,” “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?,” and of course, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”

I love that she makes many of our old favorites come to life in new ways.

Last night she brought out a bag full of camels with different numbers of silly-looking humps, from five down to zero. She taught the girls a goofy song about “Sally the camel.” It was a little math lesson too, with her number of humps decreasing by one with each round of the song.

Miss got really into it and cracked up laughing every time the song ended with Sally having “no humps” and the revelation that she was a horse. She thought that was pretty clever.

Lass totally didn’t get the words, but she sang at the top of her lungs anyway.

I love this stuff. I laughed hard last night with my girls and my mom.

This week has promoted good bonding for my girls with each other and with Grandma and Grandpa.

We went as a family to story time at my mom’s library yesterday. I asked my husband to come with us, but then felt a little guilty about it.

I second-guessed my request that he join us right before we left and told him he didn’t really need to come. He was entirely willing to come, but I was still feeling bad and thinking, “Why did I ask him to come? I should be able to take my kids to story time by myself, for pete’s sake” (Mommy guilt is so stupid). He came anyway. And of course I did have reasons for asking him, knowing that the timing of the story time coincided with Lass’s second feeding of the day. It would have been a little tricky to help my older girls with the activities I know my mom packs into her story times (in yesterday’s story time they colored, heard two stories, used finger puppets and needed help to get them on their fingers, did a group numbers puzzle, had a craft project, and ate a snack) while nursing a baby.

And yes, I could have done it by myself.

But it turns out it was really good he was there. He held Sis so I didn’t have to wear her while sitting with the big girls on the floor. And of course in the middle of the second story, just after I had helped Lass get ten little monkey puppets onto her fingers, she announced that she had to go potty.

And Sis needed to eat right after we got back from that bathroom trip. So Daddy and Grandpa helped out with the craft project of the day. I just know that if my husband hadn’t been there, Lass would have waited to announce the need to potty until I was in the middle of feeding Sis, in the middle of the second story, right after getting ten monkey puppets on her squirmy fingers.

It was a little reminder that, even though I can manage to do all sorts of things by myself with my girls, sometimes it’s cool to ask someone to help. Having my hubby there made the morning infinitely easier. Thanks hubby.

This week is coming to a close way too quickly. Tomorrow we will be visiting with my brother and his family, and all too soon we’ll be heading home. I so wish my family lived nearer. My girls are blooming this week. Grandparents rule.

A New Book To Love

Posted on September 27, 2012January 11, 2023 by Amy

My mom is a children’s librarian. When she comes to visit, she usually brings cool books or book-related activities for the girls to do. This is great, because I’m not always so great at coming up with stuff like this for them (says the mom who is planning to homeschool her kids when they begin kindergarten … yikes). During my parents’ recent visit she brought a fun project to go with the new book “The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse” by Eric Carle.

We love Eric Carle books. We have a ton of them. With this new book the publisher is doing some sort of marketing thing where they encourage kids to “paint” their own horse picture, using the printable you can find here, and mail it to Mr. Carle. So, we did.

Love.

We mailed them off the other day. Miss was excited about sending them to Mr. Carle, though she didn’t really understand what he would do with them (nor do I). As a nice side note, the activity prompted lots of discussion about authors and artists and the mail and addresses and how all that works.

After reading this book and talking about how books get made, Miss asked to make a book to give to my husband when he came home from his trip. She titled it “Wee Willy Winky” and had me write that on each page that she illustrated with her art work. I’m thinking I might print out some other pics like this horse and let the girls color and put together their own books.

They are quite into being “artists” after reading this. Awesome.

For the Love of Books

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Amy

I am an avid reader. This is not news to anyone who has read this blog regularly. I love to read. I read to my girls a lot. And I really love this:

Ever since we watched the movie Snow White at my parents’ house last month, Miss has really been into reading her Snow White Little Golden Book. I have read it to her so many times she knows it by heart. Literally. She knows every word of the story. She says words like “envious” and “penalty” and uses adorable inflection to make the voices of Grumpy and the wicked queen. She reads the book to her Oopsy Bear. She reads it to her sister. Okay, she tries to read it to her sister. Little sister usually doesn’t listen all the way through. She likes to do her own thing. Miss isn’t the only one who likes to read.

Lass has her own favorite books that she looks through or requests to have (insists on having) read to her over and over and over. When the book it done she’ll flip it back to the beginning and say “bee-ee,” which is her way of saying “please.”

Both girls ask to have various books read to them frequently throughout the day. I spend a lot of time reading to them, and it makes me incredibly happy that they love books so much. I think they get sick of hearing my voice reading the books though. If I’m reading a book to her when her Daddy gets home, as was the case tonight, Lass promptly grabs the book and takes it to him to read to her. I could say this hurts my feelings, but after reading the same book five times in a row, it really doesn’t.

Last week we went to a play date. Miss spent most of the time “reading” the books of our little hostess. She grabbed one of the girl’s stuffed animals, sat it on her lap, and proceeded to tell the stories in the books she found as she saw them based on the pictures.

She has typically had a little village of stuffed “friends” in her bed when she goes to sleep. However, recently it has been more important to her to have her books in bed with her. Yesterday I asked her if we could clear out some of the many stuffed toys in her bed. She said, “sure.” The only things she insisted on keeping were her Care Bears and her books. She has at least 10 books in her bed right now. As I’ve been typing this post, I’ve been listening to her “read” these books to her bears. It makes me smile. She does this every night and at nap time (if she’s not reading she’s singing loudly). When she’s ready to sleep, she will lay down the book she’s reading, saving her place by keeping it open but face down, and do just that.

I don’t know how much of my girls’ love of books is hereditary and how much of it is just the result of my frequent reading to them. I guess I don’t really care. It just warms my heart to see how they enjoy hearing stories or learning from books. When we read we use funny voices or make funny faces. We do lots of question and answer with the picture books and other more educational ones. We comment on, ask questions about or laugh about what characters are doing or thinking or feeling. It is amazing to me to watch their little minds grow and imaginations stretch through reading books. I have so many wonderful books I’m eager to share with them when they get a little older. The Little House on the Prairie series. The Anne of Green Gables series. Little Women. And so on. I hope my girls never lose their love of books and passion for learning.

Bookworms

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Amy

We take reading pretty seriously in our house.

We read a lot.

We love it.

I’m happy that my girls like books so much, because I am a total book worm. Reading is my thing. I have discussed this love of mine in a previous post and also mentioned that I have really enjoyed a blog called 101 Books. I would like to clarify that in that post I wrote that I had only read 2 of the 100 books on Time Magazine’s list of the top 100 books since 1923. I was wrong. In addition to Animal Farm and Gone With the Wind, I have also read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy and I’m pretty sure I once read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. So, four of 100, and since writing that post, I have read To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. Six of 100. Really?

In spite of my kind of pathetic lack of experience with the classics, I really do read a lot. Have I mentioned this fact? It became clear to me just how much I read when I was reading a post on 101 Books in which Robert Bruce (the blog’s author) included some links to other blogs he enjoys. I checked out a few of them, and noticed that in more than one, the blog’s author had written in some way about a goal to read a certain number of books within the year. I think one was 52. Another might have been 60. I decided to look back and count how many books I’ve read this year. I’ve never really had a way to do this before, so I have never had any idea how many books I read in a year. Now that I have a Kindle, I can just look back at what I’ve read on it, try to remember all the paper books I either checked out from the library or borrowed from someone, and that gives me a pretty good estimate of how many books I’ve read so far this year. So far, 39. That’s just over one per week.

With all these books I’ve read, I thought I would share with you a few of my favorite reads of 2011 so far, in no particular order:

Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue – A woman is kidnapped and held prisoner for many years. She has a son during this time. This book is told completely from the perspective of this five-year-old boy, who has never known anything outside his “Room.” One of my all time favorite books.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – Wonderful book. I love Atticus Finch. I’m glad I finally read this.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave – Told from the perspectives of a Nigerian refugee and a British journalist. Their paths had crossed one day in Nigeria. It’s a powerful story.

The Silence of Trees by Valya Dudycz Lupescu – The life story of a woman from Ukraine, from age 16 through about six decades. The descriptions of Ukrainian traditions, myths, etc. are rich and fascinating.

The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain – Like a fictional memoir, based on lots of factual information, of Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemmingway’s first wife.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett – Everyone knows this one. I’m just saying: I read it. It’s extremely good.

A Land Remembered by Patrick Smith – My mother-in-law loaned me this one. It’s historical fiction (my favorite genre) about the early settlement of the state of Florida. A very good read.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – A young adult book, it’s not something I ever would have chosen, but read for a book club. It was very entertaining, and the idea behind the plot was very unusual and creative. Set far in the future, kids from districts of a country called “Panem” are selected to compete in the Hunger Games, where they have to fight each other and the elements to be the last survivor, literally. And they do it on TV for the whole country to watch. I went on to read the other two books in this trilogy.

The Passage by Justin Cronin – Another book club book I wouldn’t have picked on my own, I thought I was going to hate this but really enjoyed it. Also set in the future after a bunch of “Virals,” essentially vampires, have destroyed most of civilization. I’m hoping the sequel to this will be out soon.

Right now I’m reading Fall of Giants by Ken Follet, one of my favorite historical fiction authors. I think this book will end up on my list of favorites from this year, though I’m only about one-third through the nearly-1000-page book. I also have six or seven books downloaded to my Kindle, waiting to be read. And I just found out today that you can now get Kindle books from the library. Heaven.

Gotta go. Page 356 is calling me. What are your favorite books??

Books and Writing Confessions

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Amy

Confession #1 – I am a total bookworm. I always have been. As a kid, one of my favorite treats was to go to the bookstore. There was this little bookstore in a nearby town and I loved it. It was just a little hole-in-the-wall place, worn and comfy and just books, long before the days of Barnes and Noble (which I love by the way). I read all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Judy Blume. Beverly Cleary. Nancy Drew mysteries. Sweet Valley Twins, and later, Sweet Valley High. The Babysitters Club. And of course Louisa May Alcott’s books. I can still picture myself in the area where they had all the books I loved to read, picking them up, reading the back cover, so indecisive about what to get. Wishing I could take them all home.

Fast forward 15 years, and I’m doing the same thing in Barnes and Noble, with a mocha and a slightly larger book allowance to spend, but still nearly breaking the bank on books and books and more books, which then cluttered my bookshelves, piled up under our guest bed and in the guest room closet and in every other tiny space I could cram them in our little starter home. Then I discovered my love for the library and the reading possibilities became endless. Aaah, it makes me smile just thinking about it.

Go forward another 10 years and here we are, in the age of amazing technology. I’m in two book clubs, both of which I found online. I don’t have to go to a bookstore anymore. I just wake up my Kindle, browse for something, hit a button, and it’s there for me to read within seconds. With two little ones, it is so much easier to get books this way. I still love to take them to the bookstore and to the library. I still check out books from the library for myself to save money and to enjoy the feel and smell of a paper book once in a while. But it is so wonderful to have the ability to get new books to read without ever getting up from my chair. Maybe I’m a big geek. Maybe I’m lazy. Probably I’m a little bit of both. I love reading books, I love talking about books. I love reading about other people talking about books. Hmmm. What?

Check this out. I found a new blog recently called 101 Books (thanks to Cathy, who writes the blog Stay in the Car Mom for this post that put me on to this blog). The blogger’s name is Robert Bruce. He’s a writer and lives in Nashville. He decided to read through Time Magazine’s list of the top 100 books since 1923, plus Ulysses (published in 1922, so not on Time’s list, but important to include in Bruce’s opinion). This is such a fun idea, it has inspired me to get back into reading the classics myself. I say “get back into” as if I’ve done a lot of it. Sadly, I have not read much classic literature. I have only read two (yes, two!) of the books on Time’s list (see the list here if you want to check your number), Animal Farm and Gone With the Wind (one of my all time favorites). Several years ago I decided to try to read more classic literature, but made the unfortunate mistake of choosing Anna Karenina as my first classic read, and the plan died right there. I forced myself to read the entire book, though I hated every minute of it. So, while I am thoroughly enjoying reading about Robert Bruce’s thoughts on reading through this entire list of 101 books, and am planning to try to read through the list myself, I have decided to only check these books out from the library and if I can’t get into them by about 50 pages in, I’m going to ditch them. Checking them out from the library will allow me to give up on reading a book without feeling guilty because I spent money on it. So, I highly recommend Bruce’s blog. It’s a good read.

I’m going to start with The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird, both of which I have put on hold at my library and will go pick up tomorrow.

In addition to writing about the books on the list and his reviews of them, Bruce writes about lots of other book-related stuff, including writing. He is a writer after all.

Confession #2 – I’m a mom and a psychologist, but I really want to be a writer. I have published one professional book, but I really want to write fiction. Or something else that lots of people would enjoy, not just the ten psychologists who bought my book. I think about writing all the time. I know that’s why I love blogging. What better way for a wannabe writer to write than to have my own space to do so without having to worry about editors or publishers or deadlines or book reviews? I just write about what I know and I love it. But I secretly want to write about stuff I make up. If I could just make up something good. . .

Confession #3 – After I left the federal prison where I used to work, I tried to write a novel about a prison psychologist. It started out wonderfully! I wrote about some of the crazy experiences I had while working in various prisons, while changing names and identifying information and changing the situations enough that they couldn’t be linked to any actual inmates or staff members. It was when I got the the real fiction part that I got “writer’s block.” I got stuck and never managed to get unstuck. I left prison work in late 2006. I wrote like mad for a few months and then stopped. Even as late as mid-2008 I was still reading and editing my book fairly frequently, doing research for it, and trying to get it going again. It never got going again. At this point I have abandoned it. I realized that it was therapeutic to purge some of my horrendous/hilarious experiences right after “getting out of prison,” but once the initial outpouring of words dried up, I didn’t feel the need to continue that particular story. But I’d still like to write someday, about something.

For now I guess I’ll just keep reading and writing my blog. And talking about reading. And reading about other people reading and writing. And thinking about writing. And writing about reading. . .

Smile, Baby

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Amy

Today I’m smiling. Ear to ear. I finally joined a book club worth joining. I’ve been trying to find a book club since we moved here. I love reading and crave adult interaction these days, so what better than a book club?? Except that I’ve never managed to find one that either A) met at a time I could make, or B) had enough members to actually be a club/group. This is the 4th book club I’ve tried. The first two never actually met because they didn’t have enough participants and the third one met at a bad time for me and was also very small.

This new one is a women’s book club and today was the first meeting. It was a blast! I don’t know the last time I got to hang out and just chat with other women in a setting that wasn’t a playdate. Now, playdates are great, but the conversation is, by necessity, always pretty fragmented and disjointed. Today Miss stayed home with her Daddy and I took Lass with me. She was a dream, and I was able to have great conversation with great people without constant interruptions to corral my toddler. Heaven!

The first book we’re reading is “The Miracle of Mercy Land.” Each of the group members in attendance go to pick a book for an upcoming meeting, so the reading list is quite interesting and varied. My pick was for December and I chose “The Red Queen” by Philippa Gregory. I just finished reading “The White Queen” and it was quite good, so I’m looking forward to my pick, as well as some of the other choices made by the group members.

And speaking of smiles, I haven’t yet been able to capture the 1000-watt smile of my youngest that can completely light up a room, but here’s a little grin.

I love how she sort of crinkles her nose. Ain’t she cute??