Book Record: Week of October 19th
I have always been one to start four books at once. I do finish them but this is a habit that annoys my husband who is very much a “choose one book and finish it” type of guy. Little did he realize that my annoying habit would be further enabled by the gift of a Kindle that he got me for my birthday! I have to say I love my Kindle and have gotten to a point where I don’t leave home without it! But I digress. The point of this post was to record books that Woody and Buzz are reading. They are a bit like me when it comes to books. They actually like starting many books at once and working their way through them all.
The Book of the Week @ Our House
Believe it or not, the Rand Road Atlas 2009 was the book that got the most mileage and was poured over this week. We were checking out at Safeway when Woody spotted this near the checkout counter and turned on the big brown eyed pleading look that he knows that I always succumb to! Given that it was on sale for $2.99 I did get it for him. Boy has this Atlas been put to use this past week! Woody has spent about 5 hours on this over the course of the week. It has led to his creating all kinds of quizzes where he has asked me and Buzz, “which two main Interstates meet at St. Paul, Minneapolis?” Usually these questions are met with blank stares from the two of us. He then shakes him head at our ignorance and provides us with the correct answer. A $2.99 well spent is all I say!
Other books read and movies watched this week include:
Monday Oct 19th. My husband calls this book, Have You Filled A Bucket Today, my Kumbaya Girls Scouts book but I love the lesson in this sweet book. Your bucket gets filled when others are nice to you and when you are nice to others. You are a bucket dipper when you are mean to others and also when others are mean to you. This book is very basic in terms of reading levels but has generated many a rich conversation at night about people who are mean, why they are mean and how the boys can be “bucket fillers” and avoid being “bucket dippers”.
Tuesday, October 20th. King of the Playground is about how to deal with bullies. This is (fingers crossed) not an issue at the moment. His strategy currently is to avoid anyone he labels as “too kooky” which is code for aggressive and this has worked to date. But given how different Woody is I wanted to make sure he is prepared. This is a book that we had Woody read to Buzz. Woody feels really important assuming the night time reading duties and I find that Buzz tends to ask Woody more questions like “what is this word” than he asks me and so I am really encouraging this reading.
Wednesday, October 21st. Woody did some reading about Christopher Columbus at school recently and I find that he is fascinated by him. I am sure there are many other books on Columbus but I bought this one a while ago at one of those buy 5 books for $1 sale. And I read this aloud to him. Little bit of a warning note in here: there are a couple of references here to people dying and this side-tracked us to a discussion around how they died and why they died that I wasn’t at all equipped to have at that moment. Luckily for me Buzz flipped ahead to a page where the Santa Maria runs into rocks and distracted the boys.
Wednesday, October 21st. The Henry and Mudge series are a very basic set of children’s books. Woody read this to Buzz and both boys enjoyed it tremendously. I kept hearing giggles from their room and Buzz would then shout, “read that part again”! Buzz then spent a good 10-15 minutes pouring over this book on his own before bed time and he asked Woody to bring home the next book in the series from the school library.
Thursday, October 22nd. Usborne Illustrated Book of Stories for Boys is a book that one of the boys got on their birthday. I found it while I was dusting yesterday and though this might be a good one for Woody to read aloud to Buzz. There are a whole bunch of stories in here that cater to boys (and girls). Stories like The Masked Pirate, Robot Racers and Attack of the Swamp Monster seemed to appeal to both boys.
Friday, October 22nd: A Bug’s Life was the first movie the kids watched on Movie Night as they waited for their dad to come home from a business trip. I picked up a whole bunch of insect related movies because Woody is currently doing an insect unit at school. This movie got a very lukewarm reception from the boys.
Friday October 22nd: The boys then talked me into a second DVD as they waited up for their dad. This Magic School bus DVD on bugs got a much warmer reception than the previous DVD. They loved the episodes on ants and bees. They watched this twice and were fast asleep on the couch when dad finally got home.
We are now enjoying a lazy Saturday morning having consumed a hearty breakfast of waffles! Yum!