This morning we ventured out for our first summer trip to the library. It was a quick trip that involved picking up 7 new picture books and 2 new Elmo movies. Last night was the first time my son ever sat through an entire movie, and when we were done he asked for an Elmo movie, so that's why we picked up some today!
So, before nap today Patrick & I read "Where is the Green Sheep?" by Mem Fox. I purposefully chose this book because at the end the green sheep is asleep and I was coaxing him up to take a nap, and thought this would help. But, the conversations we had during this read were fantastic. It took us about 7 minutes to read this book, and converse about it. Conversations should naturally happen when you are reading together. So, here's a look into our conversation while reading this book.
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| On this page the text reads "And some are red sheep." Patrick: Look at that dancing sheep. Mom: Where is he dancing? Patrick: He's going to dance in the bath tub with the bubbles. Look he's going to jump in.. Mom: That sounds like fun (I touched the red sheep and made him "jump in the bath tub." Patrick: I want to jump in. Mom: Go ahead Patrick: I jump in and I want to throw the bubbles
I thought it was neat how he wanted to make the sheep come to life and do something new. This allowed us to have a conversation about bubble baths and throwing bubbles. We pretended to throw bubbles around the room and watch them float. Then, Patrick wanted to pick the flowers. We blew the flowers to make them fly.
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Challenge for the day - Sit with your child and have a conversation about a book. See how much fun it can be and how the conversation goes. If you want, comment about your conversation!
Keep reading!
**Grrrrr! I just wrote a whole comment and it disappeared on me! Ahh! This one won't be as good, but here goes again:
ReplyDeleteI LOVE this idea, Rose! And Jack and I are so excited to participate in these challenges along with you, Patrick, and Shannon. I completely agree: talking to and reading with our kids is one of the best things we can do for their overall development and health. This is such a great way to keep it interesting all summer.
Although Joe and I have read to Jack constantly throughout his life, he's still dragging a bit when it comes to talking. Thankfully though, we've noticed big improvements since he got his ear tubes 7 weeks ago. We had a follow-up with Jack's ENT today, and the appointment threw off his usual schedule. This resulted in Jack having a very difficult time going down for a nap. Although it's usually only a bedtime book, I pulled out "Goodnight Moon" to try to help him get into sleep mode. Unfortunately, it didn't help him fall asleep too much, but it did spark some interesting "conversation". Jack just added the word "go" to his vocabulary yesterday--and has been excitedly using it all day. This continued during "Goodnight Moon". On each page, he would point to someone or something--the little old lady, mittens, kittens, bowl of mush, cows, bears, etc...--and yell "GO!" I have been anxiously waiting to hear his darling voice talk about books, so I loved encouraging this by adding ideas about where each could be going or where they were coming from. Yes, the conversation was still mostly me talking, but it was such fun and definitely a step toward us talking about books together!
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share this--Your first challenge fit in perfectly with my favorite mom moment of the day! :-) Looking forward to the next 34 challenges!
Tara,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your enthusiasm with me! I know you love a good book...I love when new words enter the vocabulary. Just wait til go becomes go away (mush, cows, bears etc.) As a teacher yourself I am sure you appreciate all the building blocks we finally get to experience first hand.
Shannon's 1st word was hi. It suits her so well because she is always trying to engage in "conversation" with Patrick, Kevin, and me. It is so much fun to wave to her while she's eating breakfast and wait to hear the "Hiiiiii" that eventually follows.