Thursday, April 30, 2015

Winter Reading List

I was scrolling through posts to see what I had in the way of drafts and came across this post, whoops!  I think it's the last post I wrote before Elise was born and forgot about, so there shouldn't be any more super late posts!  It's definitely way past time to post Carter and my list of our favorite reads from this winter.  This winter we found some really great books at the library.  With our weekly learning themes I like to get as many books on the topic as I can, so we end up with fewer random books than we did before we started our learning themes, but I'm still impressed with how many great books we discover.  Read last year's winter reading list here.
 
 

Our Top Reading Choices From This Winter:
  • Who Can Jump? by Sebastien Braun, Carter absolutely loved this book!  Not only did it have flaps for him to lift, but it also was one he could "read" the words on.  I would read the words, who can jump.  Then Carter would look at the picture and say the animal and jump for example, "Frog jump!"  Then he'd lift the flap and I'd read the full sentence so he could hear how it would sound as a full sentence.  We read this one so many times!
  • Global Baby GIRLS, I absolutely loved this book and can't wait to read it to Elise!  I know she'll love seeing pictures of other babies.  It was so neat how they included photographs of babies from different countries around the world.  I also loved the message saying girls can change the world!  It was also fun to read it with Carter and look through to see which baby Elise might look the most like considering that Carter has blonde hair and blue eyes.  We also used it as an opportunity to talk about how Carter has light skin.  He then went through the list, "Mommy light skin, Daddy light skin, Caca light skin".
  • Global Baby BOYS by Maya Ajmera, We read the Global Baby GIRLS book first and then found this one on our next trip at the library.  I loved it for the same reasons I liked the book about girls.  After reading it we again looked through and talked about how the boys looked the same or different compared to Carter.
  • Moo Moo Brown Cow by Jakki Wood, Carter really enjoyed this book because I sang it to the tune of "Baa Baa Black Sheep".  It was a great book for practicing lots of skills.  I liked that each animal was a different color so I could ask Carter what color the animal was.  I also liked that each animal had a different number of children so we could practice counting.  The book could also be used to practice animal names as well as the sounds they make.  I absolutely love books with multiple teaching points!  
  • Early Rider by William Wegman, Carter picked this book out at the library and it was an obvious favorite because each page had an actual photo of a dog with the background drawn in around it.  The book showed different forms of transportation and we found it the week after we'd just done a learning theme on transportation.  When I read the book I would stop in the sentence where it said the form of transportation shown on the page and Carter would shout it out.  He loved getting to "read" along with me!  We also used the book to practice counting by counting the number of dogs shown on each page.
  • Very Hairy Bear by Alice Schertle, This book was adorable.  Carter laughed throughout the book and enjoyed the ending.  I wished we read it before our winter themed learning week because it would have been perfect during that week!  I love Alice Schertle mostly because of Little Blue Truck.  Her books are too cute!
  • Go, Shapes, Go! by Denise Fleming, I grabbed this book thinking it might be a good review on shapes.  Carter loved it and thought it was so funny when the shapes made a cat to go after the mouse.  We then made our own pictures using shapes.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Wordless Wednesday


Wearing coozies he found.
 
Brylee came to visit.
Grant wanted to hole Elise this time.

Brylee wanted to lay with Elise like she saw Carter do.
 
 
Playing at Landon's house.
 
I love it when she grabs my shirt and holds on!
Elise and Addison were both unhappy about being put down.
Hayden and Carter
Carter feeding Harper grass.
Elise loves her Gpa!
Carter wanted to sit in the trash can as Ty pulled weeds.

Elise snuggling Gma.
 
Wearing an outfit that was mine when I was a baby.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Me in the outfit on the left and Elise in the same outfit on the right.
 
Skippy is warming up to Elise.  Maybe he knows she won't chase him screaming when she's older.
Elise wearing the dress I went home from the hospital in.
 
 
 
 
 
 
I put a headband on her to show something in style back then (the dress) and something in style now (the bow).
 
 
Carter checking on his sister.
 
Photo courtesy of Gma and Gpa.
Photo courtesy of Gma and Gpa.

Photo courtesy of Gma and Gpa.
Photo courtesy of Gma and Gpa.
 
Harper the guard dog!
 
 
Elise already loves books and being read to!
 
 
Love her newly forming thigh rolls!
 
 
 
Big girl sleeping in her Pack N Play!!!