Listening pleasure

Hello from the end of June! How did that happen!?! How did I get through the whole first month of summer without doing even half the things on my "summer to-do list"?! Is this just me?!!

Of course, to be fair, my to-do list looked like "clean out all five of your junk drawers-because no one needs that many junk drawers" ...but still....time is flying by!

I did want to check in before we get too far into July to share a little secret with you....this summer, due to all my "projects" ( junk drawer cleaning not included), I hadn't had as much time to read out loud to Ransom as I would like....THANKFULLY I purchased a cheap CD player on Amazon while Brett was out of town for work for several weeks. And if you haven't seen Ransom's Review of his latest book you can watch it now:

*side note* if you've spent ALL DAY with a 3 and 5 year old you will find that dinner time is a new level of hell for you. It is a terrible time of grumpy children who WILL hate all foods that don't start with P and end with A and have two Zs and I hate, hate, hate dinner time when Brett is gone. SOoOoOO in came the CD player, which I hoped to use to listen to books on CD while we ate so that my children would be too distracted by the story to complain about things like "green foods" and "things that aren't pizza"

The CD player turned out to be Ransom's new favorite thing and he will literally listen to books ALL DAY if I let him.

But the other thing that he has on absolute repeat are these gems that you all need to stop and purchase RIGHT NOW.

They are actually right out of my own cassette tape filled childhood and a few years ago I remembered them, did a little research and was happy to find that they'd been converted to CD and could be easily purchased online.

These wonderful stories are each based on a different composer and tell a fun little kid friendly story that tells you facts about that composers life, all the while playing a wide selection of his music in the back ground. Turns out this was how, to this day, I can "name that composer" about 90 percent of the time on my classical music station- and also smugly tell Brett that it was Beethoven's 7th Symphony that made that scene in the last X-men so powerful. All that said-these CDs are WONDERFUL even if you DON'T want to be a classical music snob.  They're really entertaining and a great way to fritter away an hour on your next road trip. Or if you're my kid, you'll just listen to them over and over again for a week straight.

Mama was not complaining.

So, here's the link to my three favorite. There are others. But you NEED to start with these three!

( if you don't mind, use my Amazon links above and I will benefit a tiny bit from your purchase.) 

Ransom Reviews: Indian in the cupboard

Friends, I'm here to share Ransom's first book review with you all. We finished his first "summer" book yesterday and I said, "Hey, Ransom lets do a video book report!" and that is all the instructions I gave. I thought it was funny that he introduced himself so professionally!
Kids.

Anyway, I needed this little bright spot in my day since our brand new (very expensive) A/C went down in the middle of the night last night apparently do to a "loose wire" according to the repair guys. Um. Not ok.

Also, Justice was up half the night being upset about Life. At least that's what I'm going to assume the reason was-  I spent $25 for a doctors visit just to prove that he wasn't upset about anything that requires medicine. Money well spent (!?) That said, he's now in his room taking a nice, lovely nap and I'm having to be all adult and not nap because of the whole "having other children" business. Unfair.

Annnnywho, hope you enjoy Ransom's review. For anyone who's actually read The Indian in the Cupboard, do you find it interesting that Ransom does not mention ANY of the pretty stressful, high-suspense moments?! What does that say about him?! Let's psychoanalyze him in the comments section, shall we?! ( JUST KIDDING!)

Summer reading fun!

So, as we head into summer something that we will NOT be stopping around our house is read-aloud-books! If there is anything I feel suuuuuper passionately about its reading aloud to my children. I've got a MAJOR soapbox issue when it comes to reading and I believe the reason so so many kids today struggle with it and downright don't enjoy reading is because they were not read TO enough! ( which is a TRAGEDY!):

Personally, I think reading to our children, or rather just having books read to our children* is the absolute best way for our kids to gain a desire to read more ( they realize what they're "missing" and want to practice reading more) and better. After all, if they're just familiar with books on their own reading level ( aka often very short, not very developed plot wise, usually not particularly captivating ) then they're never going to really have a desire to work harder to get to all of the AMAZING books that are out there!!!

But first let's get to that asterisk* : Reading out loud is actually not just the 'act of reading words on a page in an out loud voice.' It is SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.  You also have to think about what the listener is hearing, you have to master inflection ( scary passages in a scared voice, happy passages with an upbeat rhythm etc, ) and speed ( not too fast, not too slow).  And as it turns out not a lot of people know this, or have taken the time to practice. Because, yes, it takes practice. I know for a FACT that I have gotten better at reading aloud to children since having my own children. Practice does indeed make perfect, or it at least shows you areas that you need to work on. If your kid keeps getting up and walking away then MAAAAYBE just maaaaybe its not the book that is boring ( although, to be fair, that's possible too) but maybe its your monotone reading voice. But, don't worry....if  dramatic reading is not something you're up for then please PLEASE do not think that read-aloud books are not for you and your kids! In fact, don't even feel like this is some kind of great fault! Not everyone is cut out for dramatic reading, but have no fear, thanks to modern technology read-aloud books can be in your future too!

Studies say that kids who see their Dad's reading and are read to by their father's are more likely to read themselves. 

Crazy. But apparently true. 

Start by, thinking about the time you spend in the car (Everyone with one of those awful built in DVD players in their car, PUT THEM AWAY! You are WASTING perfectly good car time! *unless you're on vacation for hours and hours in which case, lets all watch Kung Fu Panda 1-3 please and thank you) Instead, hit up your neighborhood library and check out a million and one books on CD! I promise, that if you start by doing it in the car ( where your child is already strapped in) then your child will also be 'trained' in being a good book listener ( because yes it does take practice to be a listener too! Ransom started out not loving it, but only doing it so he could get screen time...now we're at the point where he doesn't even get the screen time any more but just asks for more chapters! AAMAAAAAZZZZING!) . Pretty soon you and your kids will all be delving into a wonderful world of books too!!!

Not a chapter book exactly, but we do a lot of reading for all ages around here. 

Ok! So those who are ready to start practicing reading aloud, the good news is that most of the books that are great for being "starter" read aloud books ( fast paced, fun, short chapters) are also pretty easy to read....so you and your kids can grow together! And also those of you who just want to hit up the audio books-that's great too! Or hey a great mix of both is also wonderful! I know this summer I plan on doing both!! ...now I'll just say there are a BUNCH of great reading resources that have good reading lists for kids divided by age group particularly on Pinterest. But for fun, and also because this way I will have my list in one easy to reach place, here is the tentative list of the books we'll be reading this summer:

We even read on vacation!! 

The Indian in the Cupboard ( we're currently reading this and Ransom HATES it when I stop reading...we're reading about 3 chapters a day and he's pleading for more).

The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Mr. Popper's Penguins

The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen

All-of-a-Kind Family

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car

The Cricket in Times Square (Chester Cricket and His Friends)

The Borrowers

The Silver Chair (The Chronicles of Narnia #4)

The Magician's Nephew (The Chronicles of Narnia)

The Bears on Hemlock Mountain

So there you go! These are the books I've come up with for our summer reading, and I probably need to add just one or two more to fill up the summer at the rate we are going! I think I'm going to do a little blogging project with Ransom after we've finished with each book- maybe a little video book report or something, I haven't decided yet, but it'll be fun ( and probably funny!) so stay tuned! 

Also, let me know if you have any great titles on YOUR reading list for the summer that you're excited to read/listen ! I'd love to hear about them and maybe read along with you! 

I wear a lot of white shirts while reading out loud apparently....