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JDaniel4s Mom

growing & learning with him

Superbaby by Dr. Jenn Berman- Review

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I have truly enjoyed reading the book Superbaby by Dr. Jenn Berman. It focuses on the first three years of a child’s life. If I shared every quote I have marked in the book with a little paper tab, this review would go on forever. My son is almost past the age Dr. Berman is writing about in the book and yet I had so many ah-ha moments I marked with little paper tabs. Some were ah-ha I am so glad I did that with JDaniel and others were ah-ha I still have time to work on this with JDaniel.

 

I love that she starts with communicating respectfully with your child. One of the pillars of communication is to set your child up for success. As an infant JDaniel was easily frustrated, I needed to look at the things that were frustrating him and in turn frustrating me. Trying to eliminate them or look for other ways to accomplish them made a difference for him. She also talks about avoiding power struggles. I feel like I am living in the power struggle trenches right now. I am really working on trying to give JDaniel two acceptable choices as she suggests in her book.

 

The book describes the Dunstan baby language. I wish I had known about it when JDaniel was little. JDaniel was I am sure trying to tell me some of these things and I just didn’t know what they meant. He was always trying to chat. (He must have inherited that from me.)

 

In the chapter Dr. Berman titled More Than Chitchat she shares amazing tips for encouraging language. These is one of those chapters that I thankfully could say, “Ah-ha” to and have it be because I had done modeling, self-talk, parallel talk, expansion, recasting and extension. It is worth getting the book just to find out what these words mean in the context of talking with your child.

 

What are some other must reads in this book?
  • 20 Tips For Exposing Your Child To A Second Language.
  • The Six Immediate Benefits of Reading
  • Ideas For Getting The Most Out Of The Reading Experience
  • How Bedtime Reading Actually Changes Your Physiology
  • Thirty-Six Activities That Will Make Kids Of All Ages Love Lit
  • The Emotional Benefits of Play

 

As you can probably see, I really enjoyed this book. It is easy to read. It is straight forward in its presentation of ideas and concepts. I think every new parent would love it. I think all moms can glean information that will help teach their children even if your child is old than three. You will that this book is not opinion based, but based on research done by the author and her life experiences as a mom.The information contained in this book is so helpful. Read it to learn. Read it to be inspired. Read it to say, “Ah-ha” I did that well with my child.

If you would love to add this book to your parenting library, here is a SuperBaby by Dr. Jenn Berman  link to Amazon.com where you can get it for $16.47.

 

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of Superbaby to review. All the thoughts and ideas in this post are my own.

 
 
 

The Three Horrid Little Pigs Need Manners and a Craft

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The pigs in The Three Horrid Little Pigs by Liz Pichon didn’t have the right tools to make their way in the world. They couldn’t or won’t build decent homes for themselves. They had horrible manners. They didn’t learn to look out for each other. They weren’t good for their mother either. I think that must be why she kicks them out of her house. A very kind and helpful wolf tries to mentor the pigs in homebuilding. They don’t want any help and treat him with contempt. Finally, after each has their home taken over by other animals they all decided to seek help from the wolf.

 

This is a humorous and yet telling look at the three pigs. The author opens the door for parents to talk to their children about manners and making judgments about others. I love the way the text in the story flows from one page to the next sometimes midsentence. The illustrations fill each page and beautifully paint pictures of what is happening in the story. The watercolor style is such fun.
This week we made a house out of popsicle sticks. That means we had to eat a lot of popsicles. There was no fussy from JDaniel about that.

Mom's HouseI drew this picture and had JDaniel add some of the same elements to his house.


I labeled parts of JDaniel’s house as he drew them. He hung both of our work on the fridge when we finished.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this to review by Tiger Tales. The thought and opinions in this post are my own.

 

This Little Piggy and a Craft

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JDaniel is working a lot on fine motor skills with his fingers. One way we have been working on fine motor skills is to do the finger plays in the book This Little Piggy and other favorite action rhymes by Hannah Wood. He learned several of the rhymes in this book from Miss Donna, the teacher of the Mother Goose Class we attended at the library. The some we had never heard of like Round and Round the Garden and Horsey Horsey. We love to look at the book. Hannah Wood’s illustrations are colorful, fun, and helpful. Yes, helpful. It helps for JDaniel to look at the pictures in the book for guidance as to what the rhyme is about and what we need to be doing as we act out the rhymes. He seeks this book out over and over again.

We worked with our fingers to do an art project too. After reading A Bunch of Keys idea for finger painting with condensed milk, I decided to invite JDaniel’s friend Jake over to paint with us. (We invited his friend Joe too, but Joe isn’t into finger painting yet. He chose to observe.) They had a great time painting and eating with the paint. Both Jake and JDaniel ended up covered in paint and in the bathtub by the time we were finished.

 

Disclaimer: This Little Piggy is published by Tiger Tale Books and I was sent this book to review by Tiger Tales.

 

 

Two Animal Books and Tracing Animal Textures

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This week JDaniel had read Animals Talk and Animals Go by Emily Bolam. These beautiful board books don’t contain a lot of print. Each animal has a single word they would say in Animals Talk. The Animals Go book contains a single word for what each animal would do. They don’t actually show the animal moving or talking. These leaves open the avenue for you to talk about the words and act them out for them or with them. The page opposite each animal has a great textured page that displays the animals covering. JDaniel loves to feel those pages.

 

I modeled for JDaniel how to make a crayon rubbing on the peacock page.

JDaniel and I worked on the snail and lizard page together. This was so much fun.

Disclaimer: I review books for Tiger Tales Publishing. I was sent these books to review. The opinions stated are my own.

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Stepping Stones Together Review

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Stepping Stones Together is a wonderful online resource of reading tools that parents can use to help their children learn to read developed by Dr. Erika Burton. The program has two reading assessment you can do to see if your child is even ready to start the program. Parents have access to the both the Alphabet Test and the Letter Sound Test without purchasing the program. I love that it is available to parents.

The site states the following:
  • Your child should know their alphabet out of order to begin the Stepping Stones Together curriculum. Please use the links to the right to check that your child can identify both upper and lower case letters out of alphabetical order.
  • Your child should know most of the sounds each letter of the alphabet can make. Knowing the various irregular sounds that vowels make is not necessary. Please use the links to the right to check that your child has a basic understanding of the sounds a letter can make.
  • Your child should show signs of wanting to learn how to read. They might re-tell their favorite story, having either memorized it or by using their own words.
    Your child should have some understanding of print awareness and that words are comprised of letters, reading is done from left to right and that spaces indicate new words.
    Once you have decided to register for the program you have available to you several level of books you can print out, writing and enrichment projects, reward certificates and more.
  • You can also read the books online with your children if you prefer not to print them out. Each book has comprehension questions with it. That allow your child to show their understanding of what they have read. The books also have your child’s name appearing at the beginning of the book.

I printed out several books on Level A about construction equipment. JDaniel4 is really not ready to start seriously reading although he would meet most of the qualifications to start the program. At two he is a little young for this program in my opinion.We picture walked through each book and then I read the beginning of each sentence and had him try to finish them. We read each book over several days. He started to pick up on the word patterns and books were definitely high interest. JDaniel did select them over his other books several days in a row.

This program says that if you use it to work with your child aged 3-7 for 15-20 minutes every day for ninety days they will learn to read. I really believe that a motivated child that doesn’t have any reading challenges would learn to read and comprehend with this program if you did it every day. I don’t think I would use it every day with JDaniel it would probably be a few times a week working at his own pace and attention span length. As he gets older his attention span and interest in reading on his own will grow and we would do it more often. Notice I said we. This program advocates and I agree this is wonderful process to work on together.

The program is $19.99 for ninety days and $39.99 for a year subscription. I feel that is very fair price.

Disclosure: I given access to the Stepping Stones Together Website for review purposes.

A Book About Home and A Home for Construction Vehicles

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The link above is an affiliate link.

After being on the road from July 20th through July 26th, it is wonderful to be home. There were a few times while we were gone that I wished I could have just put my house on wheels and brought it with me the way the characters in Home did. This wonderful book subtitled Once There Was A House, A House That Was A Home by Alex T. Smith tells the tale for four friends. Each friend has a dream that they want to share with the three others that share the home. When they start sharing them, they realize they really don’t want to do them together. Each one takes off to live their dream with a different part of the house. One takes the door and goes off to be a pirate. The second character named Two takes the wall and goes off to be pirate. Three goes to live underground with the windows. Finally, Four goes off to the big city with the floor. At first, they each enjoy their dreams. After a short time each learns that although they each have part of the house, it isn’t a home without all the friends together. In the end, the characters decide to rebuild their house, add wheels to it and share their dreams with each other in their new mobile home.

 

I love the pictures and messages in this book. The author/illustrator does a wonderful job of painting a picture of what makes true friends true friends along with what makes a house a home. As someone that lived in a condo for eleven years that I didn’t consider home, I really appreciate the aspects of my life and house that make where I live now a home.

 

JDaniel has a growing number of toy construction vehicles. Some of the vehicles are small enough that they have been living in a “garage” under the loveseat in the living room. The larger toys haven’t had a permanent home. They sometimes live under the coffee table. I decided we would create one out of a cardboard box.

 

We headed early one morning to the grocery store to get a box while the shelves were being restocked. The clerks at our local Bi-Lo walked JDaniel and I down the cereal aisle and let us chose a box. After creating three different size doors for the vehicles to enter the garage, we sat down at the computer and brainstormed what words and signs would be needed to decorate the box. JDaniel was sure the text needed to be red and the name had to be the Front Loader Garage. His favorite sign was the one that says “JDaniel Working.”
Here are some of the signs and words he chose.

Here is how the small doors work on the front for small vehicles.

Here is the entrance for big machines and apparently big boys.

 

Disclaimer: Home is a book published by Tiger Tales. As an official Tiger Tales reviewer, I was sent a copy of this book to review. The views and opinions expressed about this book are my own.

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Eat Nap Play Review and Giveaway

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If you are a mom or dad that has your fundar on you will love the book Eat, Nap, and Play by Robyn Spizman and Evelyn Sacks. What is fundar? The authors define it as unexpected fun. They challenged the readers of this book to plan fun at times and be ready to enjoy it when it spontaneously comes up. The book is loaded with great ideas for all kinds of fun.

The chapters run the gambit from “Spend More Time and Less Money” to “Mommy I’m (Still!) Bored!” to “Swap, Shop, Barter Share”, and seven more really fun topics. Each has easy to put together activities and or tips.

The chapter on “Spend More Time and Less Money” has several great tips on games to play at the grocery store. I loved the game that asks you to think about what you could buy in this aisle if we had an all dessert menu tonight. The Shoe To Do Box is also a great game and learning tool. All it involves putting together is a box of treasures. Children can select five and make up a play using them, play a memory game, or just enjoy playing with the treasures.
I love the marking time travel tip from the “Mommy I’m (Still!) Bored” chapter of the book. All you have to do is to select animal or character your child loves, print out a coloring page for it, and color in a section of the picture at intervals during the trip. Children see that time is passing and they are getting closer to their destination as the picture is filled in.

The book is filled with ideas like the ones above. This review could go on and on. Eat, Nap, and Plays is an amazing resource. It is one to add to your parenting library. When you buy it or win it, please take a look at the Proud of You Plate. It is really wonderful idea.

Link is an affiliate link.
Would you like a copy?
Thanks to Lisa at TLC Book Tours, I have a copy of Eat, Nap, Play to giveaway.

 

How to win it?

*Leave a tip on a fun way you get your children to eat, nap, or play. ( 1 entry)
For extra entries do any or all of the following leaving a separate comment for each entry.

 

*Join Mom Loop a community I am a founding member of on BlogFrog. (6 entries)
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* Twitter about this giveaway with a link back. Copy and paste: EatNapPlayGiveaway@JDaniel4’sMom. (1 entry per day)

 

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That is 10 ways to win. The winner will be chosen by using the random number generator at http://www.random.org/. )

This giveaway begins April 27th and ends May 6th.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book to review. The comments in the review are my own.

 

 

 

Ross King’s Words That Rhyme With Orange -Review

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Words That Rhyme with Orange by Ross King

I was just over at The BlogFrog a couple of weeks ago asking for recommendations for children’s music. Several CDs were mentioned to me by other BlogFroggers and I honestly haven’t checked them out. Why? I got a great new CD in the mail to review. It is called Words That Rhyme with Orange by Ross King. I have become a huge Ross King fan.

JDaniel and I have been dancing to it in the house and taking it with us in the car when we run errands. The CD contains are a variety of styles of music. All of the songs are upbeat and contain wonderful lyrics. Okay, there is one song about nose picking that I tend to skip when I play the CD. The message of the song is Don’t Do It, but JDaniel already does it.

Here are a few I really love. The first song Happy to Be Me encourages children to be happy being themselves and they don’t have to be anyone but themselves. There is also a cool rap about Juice Boxes. A wonderful love song about how you are loved More than anything in the world even all the sand in the desert. Two others I really like are the Learning the Alphabet song (It has a great beat.) and The Sound of Whining. JDaniel has been whining more lately. When I sing this song along with the CD, I can sing to my son about not whining over and over again. There are two mellow sleepy time songs at the end of the CD that is good for winding down at the end of a day.

This would be a great CD to add to any child’s music library. Be warned the songs will run through your head during the day and your feet will start tapping.

If you are interested in buying a copy of this really fun CD or learning more about Ross King, please check out his website by clicking here.

Disclaimer: I was sent I copy of Words That Rhyme with Orange. Unlike most things, I review I will not be passing it on to anyone. It is too much fun.

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Jesus Lives Devotional Guide Review and Giveaway

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In the next week you will be making resolutions for the next year. Some of you may resolve to spend more time with God and seek out a good devotional guide. I have been reading Jesus Lives by Sarah Young during the month on December. It is a wonderful little book of almost a half a year’s worth of thoughts based on scripture. Sarah Young has written very practical pieces that address everyday struggles for Christians. Each piece is written as if God is speaking directly to you about the ways He will guide you through those struggles. Along with a devotional piece there are three or four scriptures that further illustrate and support it. Each devotional piece has a theme and most of the themes are repeated throughout the book. You could go through this book in order or by theme if you desire.

I have read a number of devotional books. Some were sweet and tender thoughts about God. Some were written in very intellectual prose. Jesus Lives is tender in some places, but very really and challenging in others. I have been drawn back to reread some of the devotions over and over again. They have really made me think about my relationship with God and how I live my life. If you are looking to grow in your daily walk with God, this would be great book to use.

Here is a sample of one passage on trails: “…The best way to lay your problems down is: Bring them to Me. Unburden yourself by pouring your heart to Me, for I am your Refuge. As you release your woes to Me (even temporarily), your vision improves and you can see me more clearly. Linger with Me while My Light shines powerfully into your heart…”(taken from p. 12 of Jesus Lives)

I have really enjoyed spending time reading Jesus Lives this month and would love to pass on this special book to one of you.

How can I win it?
*Tell me how you plan to use the book if you win it. (1 entry)

For extra entries do any or all of the following leaving a separate comment for each entry.

*Write about this giveaway with a link back to it on Facebook or another social network site. (1 entry)

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That is 8 ways to win. The winner will be chosen by using the random number generator at http://www.random.org/.

This giveaway begins December 27th and ends January 8th at 11:59 p.m. EST.

Tinycandy’s Gift Review

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Susan E. Estes has written a touching book about a special elf called Tinycandy’s Gift. Tinycandy has trouble discovering what special gift he can create for Christmas. It doesn’t help that he has limp, uses a cane whittled by Santa, and appears to be one of Santa’s favorites. The other elves don’t see him as useful and resent that Santa favors him. In the end his cane inspires him to make a special holiday candy that will later be named for him. The creation of the candy cane helps Tinycandy get the respect and treatment from the other elves he has desired. This book teaches a special lesson to Tindycandy and its readers. Tinycandy learns that his special limp doesn’t stand in the way of his creative gift. This book would be fun for all children. It would be especially fun for a special needs child.

I really enjoyed the rhyming text in this book. Rhyming text in a whole book is hard and Susan E. Estes does a good job keeping the story flowing and the rhymes going all the way through. The illustrations by Mike Motz in this book seem to glow on the pages.

A bonus with this book is the read –a-long cd that comes with it. Children could listen to this book over and over.

To order this book and learn more about its author go to www.seecreativeconcepts.com.Autographed copies are $14.99 for the first book and $12.00 for each additional book (price includes shipping and all applicable taxes; United States only).

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book to review. I was not compensated for this review beyond receiving a copy of the book.

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