We have been quiet...and for good reason!

Hello! We have been super quiet around here lately. I am sure you have noticed. We have good reason. Raegan and I have been writing a book! We have been working for years to write a preschool curriculum book. We wrote it so it can be used for any ages from a baby on up to a five year old. Check out our website for more info: Babes, Tots, and Kids.

We are running a giveaway today on Chronicles of a Babywise Mom. You can go there to learn even more. Here is the giveaway info:

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Go Away Big Green Monster! (book and activity)

Go Away, Big Green Monster! is a fun book to read this time of year. It is also very helpful if your child is having fears of something scary being around (like monsters). It helps give the child the idea that she is in control, not the monster.

Here is a fun activity to go along with reading this book.

Your child can make her own monster.

Supplies needed:

• construction paper
• paint
• paper the same color as the paint

Have your child put a blob of paint on the paper--right in the middle. Then have her fold it in half. This will make a shape for the face of the monster. Then have her add pieces of paper for eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and whatever else her monster has. Then she has her own monster to tell to go away!

Homemade Audio Books

When I was little my grandmother recorded stories on tape for us all the time.  We still have some of them!  She also sent some to my cousins who were overseas at the time.  I think this is an awesome gift for little ones that live far away.  They get to hear your voice on a consistent basis, acting out your love from thousands of miles away by reading stories to them!

 

A few years ago I took the same concept and made a set of books on CD for my nephews (age 2 and 3 at the time).  I chose some favorite books from childhood and recorded myself and my husband reading them using my computer. 

I used a free recording software called Audacity.  It worked well.  Their software was easy to use and easy to edit.  I later went in and added a little chime sound for when the page should be turned.  The software made it easy to dub the chime to my saved recording.  Just Google “free sound effects” to find a wide array of choices.  Finally I burned all the stories onto a cd, made a cute little cover for it and packaged cd and books together for my nephews. 

We also recorded some fun family stories and songs and I added a few stories from my grandma and grandpa using the tapes they gave us as kids.

I should add that I am not a technological expert by any means.  I have trouble with Facebook!   I guarantee that if I could do this, anyone could.

It really wasn’t a difficult project to complete and I think it’s a great gift.  I recently burned all those same stories onto a cd for J so it’s become a gift that keeps on giving!  It’s been great to use on road trips and plane trips.  It also works great while cooking dinner or entertaining toddler while busy with the baby.

Since all toddlers and preschoolers tend to love hearing themselves, a great addition to your audio assembly would be having them join you in reading key words, recite a poem or even read a simple book themselves.

Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers 

Face-Out Bookshelves Tutorial

Here is our tutorial on how to do a face-out bookshelf. This is the way my husband designed so you couldn't see a back on the shelves--it looks like they are free-floating. Hopefully I can translate from Engineer-ese to English.

Materials Needed:

• 3/4"x1.5" pieces of wood cut to the length you want them on the wall. This is the actual size of the wood. They will be called 1"x2" in the store. You will need two pieces of wood for each shelf. Buy as many as you need to fill the space on your wall.
• 3" Grabber screws
• Glue if desired (we used wood glue)
• Paint and paint brush (we use foam brushes for projects like this)
• Finish nail gun nails
• Wood putty

Tools Needed: 

• Drill
• Router and/or Table Saw
• Measuring Tape
• Pencil
• Finish Nail Gun

Prepping Wood

1.First, buy your wood. If you are confused on what to buy, see the picture below. Click on it to enlarge. The wood shown in this picture would make one shelf. Cut wood to desired length.

2. Next, you need to router and notch one piece of wood for each shelf. 

Use a router or a dado on a table saw to notch one corner (all the way down the long side) as shown. Again, click on the picture to enlarge.

Use a router the opposite corner if desired. You can do it however you like things done. We used a 45 degree chamfer. You could do things more fancy if you like, or you can do nothing at all.

3. Brush all sawdust off and paint. Allow paint to fully dry. You don't have to paint the 1" (3/4") sides of the un-notched wood. 

Putting Up the Shelves

1. Measure and mark on your wall where you want the shelves. You might want to involve a level.

2. Pre-drill holes in your wall where studs are. It is very important you drill into studs.

3. You can glue one side of the shelf if desired and hold to the wall. We can't remember if we used it at this step or not.

4. Use 3" grabber screws to anchor to the studs. You want the 1" (3/4") side facing out so the long side of the wood is where your book will sit. Countersink screws so that they to just below the surface of the wood. Just make sure you don't go too far and split your wood.

Here are all of our initial pieces on the wall

 5. Uses a finish nail gun to put up the face piece. At this step, we did use glue to secure the two wood pieces together. You want the notched side in and up and the routered side out and down. See the picture below. The notching makes it so the shelf is a bit deeper while providing a lip to keep books on the shelf.

Finishing Touches

1. Use wood putty to fill in holes where finish nail gun put nails in. You want this to just go in the holes and not bump out beyond the hole.

2. Paint over wood putty once it is dry.

3. Put books up!

Face Out Book-Shelves

Oh how I love the concept of face-out bookshelves! The idea is simple. Think about a book store. How do they face the books they want to promote and sell? Are they spine in, or cover out? Cover out right? Seeing the cover of a book increases visibility, which increases how often it gets read (or purchased in a book store).

Jim Trelease suggests you find a place to do face out bookshelves in your home for your children in The Read Aloud Handbook. (See his website here for full info and pictures: http://www.trelease-on-reading.com/rah-ch7-pg3.html#raingutters). 

Ever since reading about this brilliant idea over a year ago, I have wanted it in my house. For this past Mother's Day, my wish came true! My husband designed and built these shelves for me. This picture was taken shortly after the completion, so obviously things were not all in place yet...and they are not today, either. 

The very top shelf is for pictures and whatever....I haven't nailed that one down yet.

The empty shelf in the picture is my "picture shelf." This is where I am putting photos of my children reading. I got a picture taken of the three of them reading and had it put on a canvas. The other photos will be printed normally so I can easily and inexpensively change them as I want to.

The uppermost row of books you can see is the shelf for chapter books and books my husband and I are reading. I am always reading several books at a time, and this seriously makes it so much easier for me to keep straight what I am reading and what I should be reading. 

The next shelf down I use as a shelf for books we have checked out from the library that I will be returning on our next visit. This encourages the children to read the book and also warns them if a favorite book is about to return.

The bottom two shelves are for books that fit the theme of the current week for learning activities and the next week of learning activities.

These shelves are so very worth it. I love having them. My children love them. They look at the books all the time. This Wednesday, I will have a full tutorial for you with instructions for how to build these exact shelves.

But this is not the only way to do these shelves. We talked about this in a reading book club I am in and here are ideas found on the web by ladies in that group. You can see there are many amazing ways to do these shelves!

Hanging Book Sleeves--easy to make

Flat Wall Book Holders--great for small spaces. Make yourself.

This is from IKEA. You apparently can't see the entire book, but it is an option for  you.

10 Dollar Ledges--make yourself

Another DIY book sling

This is what inspired mine

Raingutters are a very inexpensive and easy way to go.

Another inexpensive option is the spice racks here!

So there you have some ideas! Manda will share what she has done tomorrow, and I will share our tutorial for the ones we made. The neat thing about ours is that you can't see the hardware--how we hung it. No screws--it looks free floating. I love that. 

Family Board Book

I made these board books for J when he was 12 or 13 months old. It was SO easy to accomplish and well worth it.  J has always loved them.  I think these would be great from infancy on.  Just keep your little one’s slobber away since the ink will bleed… or better yet, seal the pages beforehand.

I bought a board book kit from Amazon; I’m pretty sure this is the link. The kit included the books, blank labels for each page and a computer template to download.  Of course you don’t have to use the labels.  You can draw on the books or even have your toddler create their own book.

The family book I made is very simple.  I included parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  We don’t live anywhere near ANY family, but I really wanted J to learn who all his relatives were.  This way when we are able to see them, he was already familiar with their pictures at least.  Each page in the book has just one labeled picture so it’s very clear who is who.  I used to read this book a lot to him before we took a trip to visit family to refresh his memory.  After each trip we’ve taken to visit family, J tends to return to the book a lot on his own too. I do think if I were to do it again, I would try and include photos that were a little more fun… like Grandpa playing with a ball or Aunt Jenn riding a bike (whereas I just have a photo of each one smiling).

“My Dad Loves Me” was actually a Father’s day gift (from J to daddy).  This is his favorite of the two board books, probably because Daddy is J’s favorite person in the world!  I included lots of pictures of J and dad from birth, on. I added a rhyming story to go along with the photos.  J loves that he sees them playing the guitar or playing with a ball in the pictures.  When we’ve taken a few trips without dad, I brought J’s daddy book along with us to read which he really likes.
Here’s the text of J’s daddy’s book:

Right from the start, Dad was my biggest fan. 

We share kisses and cuddles and lots of big grins.

My Daddy is teaching me to play the guitar.

I’m teaching him to take care of the car.

We work out together.

We act silly together.

We walk and we ride and we explore together.

We splash around in the pool.

We eat ice cream ’till we drool.

Whether we’re playing ball or just hanging out,

My Daddy loves me. You can’t get better than that!

Another side benefit of the board books is that when J has experienced a little separation anxiety and hesitant to play alone, I have kept the books within his reach so he has pictures of those he loves close by.  I got this idea from an online group I’m in.  I’m honestly not sure how much this helped since any bout of separation anxiety was very short lived for J.  It certainly didn’t hurt though!