• Title:  Counting Kisses
  

  Jacqueline Fenn-Children's Literature Book Review: Counting Kisses by Karen Katz

• Author:  Karen Katz
• Illustrator:  Karen Katz
• Jacqueline’s Vote:  5 out of 5
• Main Characters:  baby (background characters include mom, dad, big sister, cat, dog)

Illustrations: Throughout the whole book, warm colors of pink, green, red and blue come together nicely in collage, gouache and colored pencils.  The collage effect comes together nicely with each article/object being a solid piece of design (polka dot, hearts, stripes, plaid, and flowers).   Each page reflects a loving interaction between baby and background character.

Readability:  (89 total, 3.7wpp, gr 1.3)  Number Predictability.  The number of kisses the baby gets from her family starts with ten and goes down by one until she falls asleep on the last lone kiss, which helps engage children during read-alouds and for young independent readers.

Message:  Comforting a tired, crying baby with family member kisses, this story is a simple one that children with younger siblings can easily relate to.

Mini-Lessons:  Body parts, numbers, comfort, family, describing words, art:collages  (Vocabulary: written numbers 1-10, kiss, toes, feet, knees, belly button, chin, nose, hands, ears, wriggly, squishy, chubby, yummy, loud, tickly, warm, fuzzy, sweet, gentle, little, teeny, tiny, laughing, busy, pretty, dimpled, itty, bitty, closing, sleepy)

Flow:  Thumbs up!

• Title:  We’ve All Got Bellybuttons!
  

  Jacqueline Fenn - Children's Literature Book Review: We've All Got Bellybuttons!

• Author:  David Martin
• Illustrator:  Randy Cecil
• Jacqueline’s Vote:  5 out of 5
• Main Characters:  elephants, monkeys, giraffes, zebras, cheetahs (Fiction)

Illustrations: Beautiful, bright colors that are harmonious on each page and through the entire book, giving a pleasant flow.  Each object/animal is oil painted and outlined in a thin black line giving it a coloring book feel.  Happy characters make it FUN and engaging!

Readability:  (97 total, 4wpp, gr 1.2)  Predictable, which makes the story engaging for read-alouds and for young independent readers.  “Can you?” after each action allows for interaction between the child, reader, and text!

Message:  We’ve all got similar body parts and can do the same things with them!  Ending with tickling bellybuttons keeps the message upbeat and silly!

Mini-Lessons:  Body parts, animals, actions we can do with our body parts, similarity among people, art:oils  (Vocabulary: ears, hands, necks, feet, eyes, mouths, bellybuttons, pull, stretch, kick, close, open)

Flow:  Thumbs up!

Since most of my daily reading material consists of Dr. Suess’s Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, My First Reader books, the Little Bill series, and at least twenty childrens literature books a week from the library…I figured that’s what I know best when it comes to writing book reviews!  Of course children enjoy spending quality time together as we explore these wondrous worlds.  But I also LOVE using an array of childrens literature as themes for teaching.

Visit the childrens literature section in your local library and you will be amazed at the endless topics, creative writing styles, fantastic illustrators, and creative writers!  But hidden among the awesome books are writings that carry messages that some choose not to introduce to their children, or go against what is taught at home.  These book reviews will discuss the good and the bad so the choice remains in the parents’ hands!

A passion of mine is to create mini-lessons and hands-on activities for children!  Connecting fun crafts and educational lessons to children’s literature, fosters a love of reading that will carry into other settings.  Therefore, each book review will include ideas for you to tie learning in with that piece of literature.

Have a book you would like to get learning activities on?  Just leave a comment for me and I’ll be sure to get back to you ASAP!  Have something you would like to teach your child and are wondering how?  Let me know what you want to teach them and I’ll create a lesson with literature for you!  Goals and objectives are fun to create, but even more fun to meet when learning feels like play!  Let’s make it purposeful play! (RSS this post if you have left a comment so you will be sure to hear back from me)!

An outline on the sidebar of my blog will list every book that is reviewed.  Just type in the title in the search box to pull up that post!

I can say that I’ve done both and the first hurt more!  Don’t believe me?  Read on!

Two and a half years of chasing after children and vigorous housecleaning (yeah right if you know me) is just NOT the exercise that if I just once could have stepped foot on the treadmill that sits in plain view everyday, could have prepared me for my 2009 New Year’s Resolution…to do it the healthy way!  This includes eating right of course, but even when I had lost 30 pounds doing that, my fitness was not up to par!

I honestly have to say that my first thirty-minute run on the treadmill that took about 50 minutes was more torture than unknowingly laboring all day (doctor told me I was just dehydrated) and then frantically driving to the hospital only to be told there wasn’t time for an epidural, and then pushing this very large-sized miracle out of… never mind without any painkillers at all!

Why is my New Year’s Resolution more painful?  Because there is no end in sight!  I feel pain in my chest.  I have to stop to catch my breath every ten minutes for a few minutes.  My arthritis in my foot is on fire.  The children start arguing as soon as I get in my runner’s zone.  And the more I look at those lines of red dots telling me how much time I have left, the slower the seconds go!  And who knows if I will even keep up this New Year’s Resolution until I do see progress!  Yes, I see how many calories I’ve burned but that doesn’t give me the satisfaction I’ll get when buttoning my jeans WITHOUT a muffin top!

Yes, childbirth is much less painful!  There is an end in sight…you know at the end there will be a little miracle being handed to you!  This isn’t like a treadmill when you are not sure if you will even continue putting yourself through this pain until you see results!  With natural childbirth, you know it’s coming…no question at all!

It’s just what I wanted!  Thank you!

A huge tin of cookies….right after I’ve spent days eating the not-so-perfect ones I baked for gifts, and right before my New Year’s resolution to lose 15 pounds!

A beautiful arrangement of flavored coffees….for a tea and hot-cocoa drinker who gags at the thought of taking even one sip of coffee.

A pair of styling black shoes…that I don’t think are so styling!

A gift certificate…to a store I would never step foot in if it weren’t for the gift certificate!

Throw pillows for my couch…to replace the ones I just gave to Good Will in attempt to declutter my house!

You get my point.

How shallow do I sound by not appreciating the gifts that a friend or family member was so generous to take the time and thought into giving me?  That’s where the question arises, “Is re-gifting okay?”  I sure can’t imagine asking for the receipt, and I can’t stand the thought of collecting things to be hidden somewhere in the closet when someone else out there may love flavored coffee and throw pillows.

The honest voice of reason tells me that I can give the gifts away with the explanation that it was a gift I just couldn’t use.  But the practical voice of the woman who will be receiving the credit card statement in thirty days says that this is a perfect way to give someone else something they’ve “always wanted” while freeing up our money for the grocery bill or the Sunday church collection!

What are some of your gifts you’ve “always wanted?” And did you love them as they were or re-gift them for someone who would really love them?

For your information, these are fictional scenerios.  I would NEVER share my regifted gifts on the web!  These are actually gifts I’ve given that I hope my friends and family feel free to regift if they could find a better home for them!

WHAT IS YOUR VOTE?

Poll Results as of 11/18/08

Martha Stewart:  4

Charlie Brown:  9

Somewhere in between: 3

It was our first Christmas in our new house and I was SO EXCITED about setting up the tree of my dreams! I purchased an insane amount of Martha Stewart Christmas tree decorations and spent the entire day decorating the tree before my husband came home from work.  It was beautiful and I couldn’t wait to see his reaction!

To my complete surprise, he walked in and said, “Oh no, take it all down.”  I was mortified!  I grew up with pathetic-looking trees my whole life and couldn’t believe he was serious! I got to keep my tree, but the next year we had a kid-tree with paper chain and all.  The joy of making that chain and other homemade ornaments with my children, and seeing how happy they were decorating the tree..really changed my opinion.  The Martha Stewart decorations hang on my banister as a reminder of the year my childhood dream of a perfect tree came true, but I’m happy to humble myself to admit that my mother knew what she was doing with our Christmas trees growing up!

What is your vote?  Please leave a comment below with your Christmas tree story!

Actually that’s not the question that I’m curious about.  Every family has the right to teach their children what they choose about the existence of Santa Claus.  What I’m wondering is how parents go about explaining Santa to their children…whether they believe or not.

I’ve recently been reminded of how sensitive this topic is.  Believing myself once that parents who tell their children the truth about Santa are actually doing a huge disservice to them, I am reminded that when it comes to protecting our children…even this issue puts up our defenses!  When our oldest asked us this summer if Santa Claus is real, my husband and I chose to tell him the truth.  But we failed to tell him that some children still like to believe in Santa.  I got a telephone call last week asking me to please teach my son not to shatter the dreams of other childrens’ beliefs.  We did our best to explain to our son that even though he doesn’t believe in him, that other children still do.  He is such a literal thinker that he just can’t get the concept!  He just keeps saying, “Well, it’s the truth!”  What can you say to that?

I’d love to hear how you share the belief or unbelief of Santa with your children! Please leave a comment for me!

Maybe I need to learn a lesson or two from my preschoolers!

We love our children and want raise them the best we can!  My way is to create a curriculum that makes teaching virtues to my my children a fun daily activity.  This way, they learn something that will help them build a solid foundation to grow on, while spending quality time together! (Visit my “Generosity Page” to view my lessons)!

Before diving into our first lesson, I wanted to get a feel for how they would learn.  So, I read them The Gift, Adapted by Jennifer Boudart.  It’s about twins who want to make their sibling happy with a very special birthday gift, but don’t have the money to buy a gift.  Each one secretly goes to the store and trades his/her favorite toy for a gift for their sibling.  She trades her binoculars for a kite string for her brother, and he trades his kite for a binocular case.  Thankfully, upon opening they are able to laugh that they no longer own their favorite toy their gift goes along with!

So, what is it that I could learn from my children?  At the end of the story we talked about what it means to be generous.  The boys wanted to give one of their favorite toys away.  I was so excited that they understood the concept and was very interested in seeing the toy of choice!  When the toy ended up being one they had just received as a birthday gift a couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t willing to part with it!  So, this unit will be good for me as well as my children!

As a funny side note… Later in the day one of my children was occuping himself with a toy, when out of nowhere he gazed up with a very concerned look and said, “I don’t want to give this toy away!”  Needless to say, that was a  teachable moment to let him know he gets to choose how he wants to be generous!

Most of my reading consists of preschool or elementary school reading level books, like The Three Little Pigs, Going on a Bear Hunt, and Narnia.  It isn’t often that as a stay-at-home, work-at-home mommy that I find time to read any “Books for Me.”  But when I do find a book that touches something important in my life, I want to share it with you!

The last two “Books for Me” were so meaningful that it was very difficult to close the pages on their worlds to return to my world!  I invite you to visit “Favorite Book Review” pages on the top right of this screen to get a glimpse of these books.  Please share your comments about my thoughts, write your opinions, or ask me questions.  I’d love to have dialougue with you!  I would also love it if you would suggest other books that you may think would be meaningful and worthwhile to read.  Thanks for visiting and I hope to hear from you soon!

It isn’t often that my children let me take “Wheels on the Bus” off repeat in the car, but last Sunday was a rare exception. I heard a man on the radio state that the highest calling in a mother’s life is to first be a mother.  It put a seriousness in my heart to make sure that with all the chaos that comes with being a stay-at-home, work-at-home mother of many, that my children are indeed number one in my life.

I shared this “evolution” with a dear friend of mine (BBT), who thankfully corrected me…my highest calling in life is to be a disciple of Christ.  I know this may sound religious, but it’s actually very down-to-earth real!  I believe it is my highest calling to be a follower and an example of what I learn about Christ’s life through my life as a mother.

While I believe the best way to teach is to be a model myself, I have decided to devote time with my children to have organized (or not so organized) activities that teach virtues like love, sharing, and generosity.  As I research more, I will include stories from the Bible so that my children will have a foundation to grow on.

With my anal curriculum-building days as a teacher, I will be posting my lessons here.  I hope you enjoy the pictures of their work, and I invite you to use my lessons with your children.  I am also very happy to use your comments and suggestions for future activities.