Baby Shower Book Shower

As promised in my last post, I'm back with more info about the books I gave to my sister as part of her baby shower gift.   The invitations were made to look like a baby onsie, so my clever mom made the book request insert in that shape too.

My mother is quite the poet and came up with this cute saying all on her own.

Reading to your child is a wonderful thing to do, and it can never start too early.  Asking guests to bring a book to the baby shower is a great way to start building your child's library.  Guests brought all kinds of books from board books, to early reading books to classic children's books.  I put several books into a storage basket that could double as toy or book storage for my future niece.  

Below are amazon.com affiliate links of a few kid tested mom approved books we like.

     

If you're wondering what else I included in my baby shower gifts, check out this post:

BABY SHOWER GIFT BASKETS

And here we are one year later, celebrating my niece's first birthday.  

She looked like a princess in her vintage looking lace dress, gold shoes and crown.

Seriously, isn't that crown just adorable?

And yes, she loved every bit of her birthday cake.  

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5 Must Read Christmas Books for Kids

Last weekend we put up our tree and decorated the house.  That includes getting out my Christmas books and displaying them in the living room.  I got this Happy Holidays basket a few years ago during an after-Christmas sale.  I use the basket year round by turning it around so the holiday words are facing the wall, or sometimes I remove the liner all together.  I put this basket  in the living room and this is where I placed all our holiday books so they are separate from our other books and the kids can easily see them and read them whenever they want.

  

Also, this year I went light on the decorations because this little guy wanted to get into everything.

Even had to hang the stocking up extra high so he wouldn't pull them down.  Just look at him on the chair scheming a way to get them.

One thing he is learning to do is to sit still for story time.  It's so cute, he'll bring me a book and snuggle up right next to me on the couch.  He's also finally letting me turn the pages and read the entire story (as long as it's not too long).

So here's my list of must read Christmas books for kids.  Affiliate links provided so you can easily buy these for your own Christmas collection.

This is a fun and silly book great for younger kids.  Just goes to show you how a Dad would do anything for his kids.



We have this in board book form so it's great for babies and toddlers.  It's a cute story about how a gift from the heart means more than all the goodies and festivities at Christmastime.



This has become a classic in our home as well as the movie.  I can't wait to watch the movie this year with our train loving two year old.  One year we did our own version called the "Mini Van Express" where the kids got tickets and we drove around looking at all the Christmas lights.  You can find out all about that adventure HERE.


Another fun book for little kids, even non readers can enjoy this and perhaps look at it on their own, giving you some time to bake or wrap presents.



A collection of stories to read to your kids that illustrate kindness and becoming more like our Savior this Christmas season. 



What are some of your favorite Christmas books to read to your kids?  

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The BEST Learn to Read Books

In my last post I gave a list of book series that my tween and teen love to read, and now I'm back with my favorite books for teaching preschoolers how to read.  

Not every easy reader or phonics book is easy to read for someone just learning to read.  My favorites are ones that use short vowel sounds and each word is able to be sounded out, with the exception of a few sight words.   My soon to be kindergartner is working through these book sets (affiliate links):  

Bob Books, Animal Antics, Phonics First Steps

Here is a close up of a page in each book.  You can see how each word can easily be sounded out by a reader that knows what sounds each letter makes.  These are great for beginning readers and helps them build confidence and to read on their own.

And here's an example of a "phonics" book that would be very hard for a beginning reader to read on their own.

Just look at all those words that you can't easily sound out.  This would be for a more advanced early reader, one who has mastered the short vowel sounds and is working on the long vowel sounds.

So if you are looking for some truly beginner learn to read books, I'd stick with the ones below.

Happy reading!

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Summer Reading List

I'm lucky that all my kids love to read.  My 11 year old daughter especially loves reading and will sometimes read a book a day.  And I'm talking about 300 page books.  She often stays up later than I do just reading.  Once school is out we'll be making weekly trips to the library so I can keep supplied with new books.  

In case you are looking for some good books for your teens and tweens, here's several book series that my kids have enjoyed reading (affiliate links to amazon.com):

Some of my daughter's favorite series are:
Children of the Lamp
The Land of Stories
Once Upon the End, Half Upon a Time, Twice Upon a Time
The School for Good and Evil
Lemony Snicket series

My 13 year old son is more selective in what he reads. He likes science fiction and has read the following:
all the Harry Potter books
the Animorph series
Infinity Ring series
The James Patterson Middle School  and I Funny books
39 Clues series
Diary of a Wimpy Kid books
the I.Q. series

My almost kindergartner loves to look at books and pretend to read by making up stories to go along with the pictures.  And my toddler loves books with animals, babies or vehicles.  He loves to yell out the name of the picture on the page.  I don't read very much so I'm glad my kids have picked up this great habit.  Having plenty of books around and taking time to read to my children must have worked, because they sure didn't pick up their love of reading by watching me read.


In addition to going to the library to get books, we also attend the weekly activities they have going on during the summer as part of the summer reading program.

Our library hosts a summer reading program which includes weekly activities for the kids.  Here are some pictures from last year.

The Sciencetellers made learning science fun.  Here is my then 10 year old (in the purple shirt) 

The Bug Man.  Here my then 4 year old is holding a giant cockroach.  EWWWW!

We've signed up for the summer reading program at two different libraries since they are both close and we get to do double the activities and double the rewards.  The one library gives away much better prizes including a free ticket to Dutch Wonderland. 

What do you do to keep your kids busy and educated over the summer?

We'll also be going on some fun field trips and a few summer camps and dance / music lessons this year.

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