Early Literacy Activity Cards-Resource

Image borrowed from kwachtman.wordpress.com

I came across a site called Family Literacy Expertise, they are a Canadian non-profit and have an immense resource of early literacy activity cards based on familiar children's books. If you are looking for a kids book with activities pre-pared with it, or have a kids book and are looking for activities to accompany it. This is a great site to check out.

Some of the books they have listed are:

A Big Fat Enormous Lie	My Family's Changing
A Child's Treasury of Nursery Rhymes	My Friends and Me
All Together Now	Nose to Toes
Alligator Baby	Number One, Tickle Your Tum
Amazing Grace	On Your Potty
Andrew's Loose Tooth	Pajama Time
Baby Faces	Peek a Who
Barnyard Dance	Peekaboo Baby
Big or Little	Red Ripe Strawberry, Little Mouse and the Big Hungry Bear
Can't You Sleep Little Bear	Shoes from Grandpa
Clap Your Hands	Sleepy Little Mouse
Finding Kate's Shoes	Stellaluna
Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed	Stop Picking On Me
Five Little Monkeys Sitting In a Tree	That's Good That's Bad
Five Little Monkeys With Nothing to Do	The Bear Went over the Mountain
From Head to Toe	The Grouchy Ladybug
Good Night Gorilla	The Itsy Bitsy Spider
Goodnight Moon	The Kissing Hand
Guess How Much I love You	The Mitten
Hands Are Not For Hitting	The Princess and the Potty
Hiding	The Very Busy Spider
I Can Blink	The Way I Feel
I Have to Go	Touch and Feel Animal Kisses
I Love You So Much	Touch and Feel Bedtime
I Miss You	Touch and Feel Mealtime
If You Give A Moose A Muffin	Touch and Feel Pets
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie	Two Eyes A Nose & A Mouth
If You Were My Bunny	Up to the Skies and Down Again
I'm A Little Teapot	Very Busy Spider
I'm As Quick As A Cricket	Very Hungry Caterpillar
Jessica's X-ray	Where the Wild Things Are
Lifetimes	Where's My Teddy
Little Mouse, Red Ripe Strawberry & The Big Hungry Bear
Makeup Mess

Cat in the Hat Clothes for Infants and Toddlers

Happy New Year All! I wish you all the best in 2012! How are your New Year's resolutions coming? Have you given up on them yet? :)

Anyhoo, as you may have noticed, I haven't posted much since Christmas. I decided to capitalize on spending some quality time with my family (and reading books with them too, of course!).

But this morning, I just knew I had to post about something that caught my eye. I'm a Zulily member, it's similar to Groupon and other deal sites but this one focuses on stuff for kids and moms, and this morning's email had the cutest Cat in the Hat clothes! If you're kid is a  huge fan like mine, these are a must have! In both boys and girls styles, and sizes from infant to toddler, there's something for every Cat Fan!

Sign up here to start reciving deals from Zulily, and to be able to purchase some these too cute clothes!

Five Days of Worth The Read Christmas Books: Day Two, Vivian Walsh's Olive, the Other Reindeer

If you've ever sung the wrong lyrics to a song, or have seen the VW Rocket Man commercial, you know that song lyrics, however melodious, can be seriously misheard by the human ear. And that is what the story of Olive, the Other Reindeer is all about.

Olive is going about her business doing normal dog things, taking walks, wrapping presents, and listening to the radio when the holiday classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer comes on. True to the song, the lyrics "All of the other reindeer" waft over the airwaves, but what Olive hears is "Olive, the OTHER reindeer". When Olive hears this song, she no longer believes she is a dog, but a reindeer.

Olive sets out on a trek for the North Pole to meet Santa, and to become part of his flying reindeer team. She encounters many obstacles along the way, but the story ends in the most perfect way.

The book's title, with it's subtle humorous play on words carries throughout the book, creating a lovable character that children are sure to love as well as keeping parents intrigued with humor that would otherwise he over the heads of their children.

This books is worth the read for many reasons, the cute illustrations, the humor throughout, and because in 1999 Olive, the Other Reindeer, the movie, became a prime time sensation. That means it's got to be good, right? Pick this one up and you won't be disappointed. You might be able to catch the movie on TV, check your local listings.

Salt Dough Ornaments, Part One

Today I set out to have a "crafty" day with Lil Man, I was quite ambitious in thinking that we could make salt dough ornaments AND decorate a gingerbread house. Apparently, 20 month olds don't craft quite as fast as 25 year olds. :) Needless to say, today we only made it to half of the salt dough ornaments.

The Paper Mama sucked me in with her 50 DIY Christmas Crafts Salt Dough Ornaments. I love the folk art feel of salt dough crafts, and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to share my love with Lil Man. So while he was napping I prepped the dough, as directed in The Paper Mama's post. Then after he woke up we set off to make some ornaments! Lil Man LOVED it!

Some of the creations... we did use a straw at the end to put holes in the top

Lil Man making a star ornament

Super excited about his accomplishment!

During our time crafting the ornaments, we spent time talking about the different shapes of the cookie cutters, working on enunciation of words, and talking about different textures, turning the ornament making process into an early-literacy experience! I don't think Lil Man knew he was learning at all. :)

You'll notice that there aren't any pictures of the finished product in this post, that's because the ornaments have to bake for almost 5 hours. So, they are baking away in the oven right now. They won't even be out until after Lil Man is in bed. So stay tuned....there's more to come!

Wordless Wednesday -- Celebrating Hanukkah As Christians

Call me crazy, or whatever you want, but I'm a Christian that celebrates Jewish holidays in conjunction with Christian holidays. It is my personal belief that Jesus came and amended the laws of the Old Testament, not threw them into the fire. Therefore, since Jesus was Jewish, I celebrate the Jewish holidays as well as the Christian ones. In our home, celebrating both sets of holidays promotes tolerance. Not to mention, I'll take any excuse to eat a latke or some sufganiot! So this WW, I wish all of my true Jewish friends, and those like me who celebrate anyway, a Happy Hanukkah!

The perfects.....and the defects....

Tasting a piece of Latke

Not the clearest shot, but Little Man decided he's a Latke Monster!

Learning about Hanukkah, this is now one of our favorites! Dogs in a "lift the flap" book, nothing could be better! ......except......

Playing Dreidel!!

And winning CHOCOLATE MONEY!

Wordless Wednesday Link-Up:
The Paper Mama, A Little King and I, 5 Minutes For Mom, Parenting by Dummies, Project Alicia, And Then She Snapped, Jenni from the Blog, and Live and Love Outloud

Breaking Crackers, Breaking Hearts--EarlyLit Tip Tuesday IDEATV

Five Days of Worth-The-Read Christmas Books: Day One, Jan Brett's Who's That Knocking on Chirstmas Eve?

For day one of "Five Days of Worth-The-Read Christmas Books", I thought I would start with the opitome Christmas authors, Jan Brett. Ms. Brett has written so many Christmas and wintertime stories, that if you miss a few of her everyday books, you would think she writes Christmas and winter books exclusively.

Most of Brett's books are riddled with folklore and fantasy, and her trademark old worldly illustrated hindsight/foresight sidebars lend an accent to those styles nicely. Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve (WTKOCE) is no different in style.

In this story, a young boy from Finmark, Norway is on his way to Oslo with his Ice Bear when he smells something delicious and stumbles upon a cabin in the woods.

Inside the cabin, a girl name Kyri is cooking Christmas Eve dinner for her family and is startled by every sound she hears. She's had trouble with Trolls invading and eating her Christmas Eve dinners in the past, and she's afraid they'll be back for more this year. Deciding that the young boy's knock was polite enough, she lets him and his Ice Bear inside to warm up. Soon, they are invaded by trolls.

I don't want to give away the whole story, but it ends with the young boy and his bear being invited back for Christmas Eve dinners to come.

Overall, this story is well written for it's intended audience, and incorporates some of Brett's favorite themes: Winter, Bears, and Trolls. The Illustrations are stellar in classic Brett style, but my favorite illustrations in this book lie within the sidebars. Brett did a phenomenal job incorporating the troll theme into her illustrations of the northern lights and constellations, I had to go back after I finished the story itself to take in the beauty and detail of the sidebars. I was left in awe. The detail in the illustrations alone make this book "Worth The Read", but the story by itself is sure to please young readers as well. As with most of Brett's books I say, the story is for the kids, but the illustrations are for the adults. :)

Stay tuned for what Day Two brings! Happy Reading!