Book Sharing Monday :: Usborne Boys' Activity Book --- + a small update on our move

We moved last week from Ontario to Prince Edward Island. I apologize for the poor quality of the the photos in this post. The moving truck hasn't arrived (I am typing on the floor!). We just hooked up our computer yesterday and I don't have my camera out yet, so these photos are from our iPod.

Our big move went well. My two youngest children and I traveled by train from Windsor, Ontario to Moncton, New Brunswick. This was a long train ride and I didn't bring many things along because we had to change trains twice. We then made our way to PEI for our final destination!

My son (13) has his own iPod Touch and Celeste (8) used mine at times. I had uploaded audiobooks from the library to each iPod and they listened to those. I also had brought Dutch Blitz card game and the two activity books seen in the photo above. My daughter didn't use it as much as my son. This book was a hit with him!

The Usborne Boys' Activity book is filled with a ton of puzzles, codes to crack, jokes, did you know? facts, mazes, stickers, writing prompts (finish the story) and doodle suggestions. The book is organized by themes, monsters, cars, space, etc..Hours and hours of fun, really!

If you want to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please leave the link to your book sharing post below. Happy reading!

Book Sharing Monday :: Countries of the World Series by National Geographic

We have been using a series from National Geographic called Countries of the World this year for our High School World Geography course from Harmony Art Mom(which all 3 of my kids participate in). She recommends using Enchantment of the World series, but our library didn't have many of the titles so I chose this series as a replacement. This National Geographic series turned out to be a great choice for our family.

Each book covers one country and follows the same format. You can see the contents in the photo below. Geography, nature, history, people & culture, government & economy are covered.

There is also a section with extra informative facts at the end of the book, along with a glossary, bibliography, and a section called further information that contains more web sites suggestions. Each section is filled with interesting texts, photos, and maps. These books are colourful, captivating and perfect for reading aloud in my opinion.

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, you can add a link to your book sharing post below. Happy reading!

Book Sharing Monday :: The Boy Who Grew Flowers

The Boy Who Grew Flowers is the story of Rink Bowagon, a boy who grows flowers on his head! This fictional story is a beautiful tale of courage, acceptance and friendship. I originally picked up this title because we are learning about flowers in science. It didn't really relate to our studies but it was such a nice story, I had to share it with you. Like all the Barefoot Books we have read, this one moved us through its illustrations and its story. 

"Climb to the top of Lonesome Mountain to meet a very special boy named Rink — every full moon, he grows flowers all over his body. This heartwarming story celebrates difference and friendship, as Rink meets a girl with her own secret, and they discover ways to help each other." from Barefoot Books.

"The Bowagons were the only folks who lived on Lonesome Mountain. The townspeople argued as to whether it was because they were such strange folk that they lived there, or whether it was because they lived there that they were such strange folk."

 

You can participate in Book Sharing Monday by adding a link to your book sharing post below. Thank you and happy reading !

Book Sharing Monday :: Splat the Cat "I Can Read" Series

I had to take a short break while I was getting our home ready for our big move to Prince Edward Island! Now that packing is almost complete, I have re-opened Canadian Home Learning blog.

I wanted to share with you this fun series of "I Can Read" books. We love Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton and Celeste absolutely loves reading these readers over and over. This says a lot because she is not a strong reader and doesn't usually enjoy reading a lot!

Splat the Cat is a fun and silly black cat. His adventures always have an unexpected twist!

Celeste's favourite is Splat the Cat Good Night, Sleep Tight. In this story, Splat the Cat is camping in his backyard and is looking forward to it until he finds out that his mom invited two of his friends too. He doesn't like them very much...

Feel free to add a link to your book sharing post below. I am not sure, unfortunately, how regular my posts will be, but I will try to keep going!

Book Sharing Monday :: America is Under Attack

"American is Under Attack" is written and illustrated by Don Brown and is part of a series called Actual Times.

When I noticed this title at the library, I was intrigued by it and how it would explain this horrible event to children. Don Brown does an excellent job at explaining what happened. He includes many details and stories about the firefighters and other individuals.

"High on the 88th floor, Frank De Martini, the building's construction manager, hadn't heard anything from the rescue operation based in the lobby. He didn't even know about the plane crash; he thought someone had planted a bomb or that a mechanical room had exploded."

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please include the link to your book sharing post below.

Book Sharing Monday :: The Thinking Girl's Treasury Series

We discovered the Thinking Girl's Treasury of Real Princesses a few months ago and have read a few titles. On a more recent library visit, we noticed another series by the same publisher, Goosebottom Books, called "The Thinking Girl's Treasury of Dastardly Dames". I am sharing the two series with you today because I feel that both of these series would make a great addition to history lessons, or could be enjoyed on their own.

The Thinking Girl's Treasury of Real Princesses highlight one princess in each book. Each biography is filled with illustrations, photographs, and interesting text. We learn about what the princess wore, ate, along with her life story.
Both photos below come from "Nur Jahan of India":

"Nur Jahan was not born a princess, although she was a distant cousin of the Persian royal family. In fact, she was not born Nur Jahan at all. Her birth name was Mihr al-Nisa (Sun Among Women), and her father was a Persian nobleman who had come to India to work in the Moghul court."

The Thinking Girl's Treasury of Dastardly Dames highlights the stories of women through history that were a little more "nasty". These are also queens, princesses, empresses, but their reputations aren't as polished as the ladies presented in the Treasury of Real Princesses!
We read "Cleopatra: Serpent of the Nile" and I am sharing with you "Cixi: The Dragon Empress".

We read about the last empress of China. In a similar layout as the real princesses' books, we found out where and when she lived, what she ate and wore. We also learned how she treated others and how she was able to rule her country through her son.

"Cloistered within its thirty-foot walls, Cixi had lived a pampered life while her people starved. Her extravagant lifestyle, displays of bad temper, and brutal punishments on those who opposed her earned her the nickname, the Dragon Empress."


Goosebottom Books has extra resources for each of the titles. You can visit at this site: Resources. 


If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please leave a link to your book sharing post below. Thank you and happy reading!

Book Sharing Monday :: Bubble Homes and Fish Farts

Bubble Homes and Fish Farts is written by Fiona Bayrock and illustrated by Carolyn Conahan. We picked up this title from the library to add to our fish study. This book talks about many more animals than just fish! It is all about bubbles and how animals, from Violet Sea Snails to Pearl Gourami, use bubbles. 

"Bubbles are soft and squishy and full of air. They shimmer. They float. And they are very handy. Animals make bubbles, ride bubbles, breathe bubbles, and even live in bubbles. Animals use bubbles in amazing ways."
To participate in Book Sharing Monday, please leave the link to your book sharing post below. Thank you and happy reading!

Book Sharing Monday :: LMNO peas

LMNO Peas by Keith Baker is a very cute and fun alphabet book focusing on occupations.

My youngest loves this book and I think it's wonderful that it shows so many different types of jobs people do with great illustrations.

"We are peas - alphabet peas! We work and play in the ABCs."

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please add the link to your post below. Thank you.



Book Sharing Monday :: Robot Drawing Book

Ralph Masiello has a great series of drawing books. We have enjoyed the Bug Drawing Book, the Dragon Drawing Book, and the Ancient Egypt Drawing Book.

This time, we checked out the Robot Drawing Book from our local library. Andre and I tried our hand at some robots while we were watching a movie Friday night.

We particularly liked that each page gave us a  basic robot to draw and that we could add details "spare parts" to make each robot unique.

Extra resources can be found at the back of the book, books and websites for younger and older robot fans.

"If you can draw a square, a circle, and a rectangle, you can draw a ROBOT!"

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, you can add your link to your book sharing post below. Your post can include photos of the book, a quote from the book and what you liked about it. Thanks for sharing!

Book Sharing Monday :: Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Welcome back to Book Sharing Monday!

This week, we are doing a little Dr. Seuss author study so I chose one of his titles to share. "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" is a wonderful book for all ages. I read on Wikipedia that this is a title often gifted to new graduates. It is a great story about life and all its ups and downs.

Here is Celeste's favourite part:

"The Waiting Place...
for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a place to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting."

My favourite is:

"You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
in any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

I found a youtube video that is interesting to me because a friend attends this event regularly. I would recommend that you view the video on your own first, before watching it with your children. Burning Man is a week-long creative yearly event in Nevada, USA and this video was made with Burners reciting the Dr. Seuss story.









To participate in Book Sharing Monday, you can write your post on your own blog then come here and use the linky tool to share your post. You can also leave me a comment.
The idea of Book Sharing Monday is to share your current favourite children's book by posting some photos and a quote from the book. You can keep your post as simple as you wish or write more if you like! We have found Book Sharing Monday wonderful in the past for discovering new-to-us authors and books.

Happy reading!

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Book Sharing Monday is COMING BACK!

I have decided to start Book Sharing Monday again. I have missed sharing our favourite children books with you all!!

Please stay tuned, I will post more details again on Sunday. I am hoping to find a free linky tool for all of you to share your posts here. If anyone knows of any reliable free tools, please leave me a comment!

Until then, you can go and read all the archives here from my past posts, which include links to other families' book sharing posts.

Here is a description of Book Sharing Monday, if you are not familiar with it:

I created Book Sharing Monday in December 2008 and put out an open invitation. The idea was to share our favourite children books, with a quote from the book and photos if desired. You could share as much or as little as you wanted. I saw it as a sharing of our favourite books of the moment. We shared a lot of picture books, and also novels, non-fiction books, or even books related to children (parenting or other).

Back to Posting...

I am back to posting a little. I find it funny that whenever I decide to take a break, I find ideas for posting and sharing!!

I have made a difficult decision but one that I hope you will understand. I decided to close the Book Sharing Monday posts. You can access all the archives of these book loving posts in the tabs, right below the main blog title. There is over 125 book sharing posts I wrote! I will continue to share with you our favourite books, but it won't be a regular Monday feature. I hope you will continue to talk about your favourite children books on your own blogs, I have discovered many interesting books from you! Thank you to all that participated over the last two years (actually more, since December 2008!).

Finally, I wanted to share a little bit about our day today. We took some time today to learn about the Elections in Canada. Adrienne and I researched information about each political party and each leader and local representative for each party. I have voted in the past, and my husband and I voted again today. I do feel that I learned more about Canadian politics today and I know that Adrienne learned a lot too. She had strong opinions about how she would vote if she could! We will be studying the results together as well and what they mean for our country.

Book Sharing Monday :: More Poetry Books!

This series is wonderful. The Poetry for Young People by Sterling Publishing is a great way to introduce poetry to children. Scholastic has reprinted many of the titles and I have been fortunate to find a few at our local thrift store!
We are reading through these this month. Each book has an introduction, which is a short biography of the poet, selected poems follow, some with explanations of the poem or words defined. 

Here are two of our favourites:

"I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!

They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

to an admiring bog!"

Emily Dickinson.

How Doth the Little Crocodile

"How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in,

With gently smiling jaws!

Lewis Carroll.

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please include the link to your book sharing post below. Happy reading! 

Book Sharing Monday :: Two Poetry Books!

This week I am sharing two poetry books! They both use haiku poems. The first book is about Ontario. "Great Lakes & Rugged Ground: Imagining Ontario" is written by Sarah Harvey and Leslie Buffam. The watercolour and coloured pencil illustrations are by Kasia Charko. 
This book is beautiful and we really liked that we were able to find a poetry book about where we live! This book celebrates 400 years of Ontario's history  through poetry, starting with the Iroquois all the way to 2010 and Toronto's Caribana celebrations.
The book includes historical notes and a fun seek and find, both can be found at the end.

"A park is for all.

The pictographs are sacred.

Pink orchids are too."



The second book I would like to share with you is fun! "Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys" is written by Bob Raczka and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds. You might recognize the illustrator's work from "The Dot" or "Ish". We have enjoyed both of these titles in the past. This poetry book is filled with haikus about a young boy's fun in nature. Organized by seasons, the author shares some of of his own experiences when he was a boy or about something he saw his own sons do.

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please add the link to your book sharing post below. Happy Reading!

Book Sharing Monday :: A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms

April is Poetry Month in the USA and Canada! I thought I would share poetry books for the whole month of April to celebrate. We usually make a point of reading more poetry books from the library or study poetry during this month.

The Poets website has a great resource page, a list of "great poems to teach" with audio clips for each poem listed. There are many resources for celebrating National Poetry Month too on this page. Young Poets also has many useful links listed here. I had listed more helpful links in this post.

For the first poetry book I would like to share "A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms" selected by Paul B. Janeczko and illustrated by Chris Raschka. This book has an unusual title, but it is interesting! Through selected poems, the author showcases 29 poetic forms from the couplet to the pantoum. The author gives a suggestion on how to read this book in the introduction, he writes to read the poem, then the explanatory note at the bottom of that page. He mentions the extra explanations at the back of the book and then suggests to read the poem "another time or two to see if you can tell how it follows - or departs from - the aspects of that particular poetic form. "

Tyger Tyger, burning bright

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

"The Tyger" by William Blake.

A quatrain

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please include a link to your book sharing post below. Happy reading!

Book Sharing Monday :: The Spring Equinox

The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth is written by Ellen Jackson and illustrated by Jan Davey Ellis. This book explains the ways different cultures celebrated the arrival of Spring in the past. The author then explains the special celebrations and festivals for Spring's arrival for today's people. The Seder (Jewis), No Ruz (Iranian), Holi (Indian), and Easter (Christian) are explained. Easter customs, like the egg and the rabbit, are written about as well as Earth Day. 

There is an ancient Anglo-Saxon springtime story about the goddess of Spring and the magical hare at the end of the book, with a few hands-on spring activities. 

"The spring equinox is a time of beauty - and it is also a time of balance. It is not quite summer yet, but not really winter anymore, either. It is a time when the world stands between the two seasons. It is a time to walk in balance with nature and look to the future."


If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please leave a link to your book sharing post below. Happy reading!