zoe's fancy nancy tea parties book review

in this book fancy nancy shares all her tips on tea parties. first she talks about ensembles and etiquette like what to say to your hostess and where to put your napkin. nancy even tells you how to make things like food and place mats. for a doll tea party she uses a shoe box for the doll table, shells for bowls, toothpaste caps for cups, and a cookie for a cake. at the end of the book are invitations to tear out for your own tea party. this is the best fancy nancy book!

by zoe

Our homeschooling story, & some great books.

When Zoe was four years old she went to preschool. I don't remember the exact hours, but I know it started early in the morning and got out at least a couple hours after lunch. After school and on weekends Zoe watched TV. Constantly. When I tried to get her to do other things, like you know, play, she would cry or get "bored" or simply not know what to do with herself. Zoe was overstimulated. Only I didn't know it yet. So I perpetuated it.

Being overstimulated also affected Zoe's attitude. When she wasn't being entertained (by school or TV) she was fussy, cranky, and full of sass. To be honest with you, we didn't really like each other. She was constantly flip with me, and I was more than happy to avoid her by using the TV, AKA, they babysitter.

Then we took a family vacation the summer before Zoe began kindergarten. For a week we played at the beach, went for walks, and ate together as a family. Something strange started to happen to Zoe as the week progressed. She became sweeter and less overstimulated. She was calm. We got along. We didn't fight. We didn't have things to do, places to be, TV to watch.

I had a revelation. What if school and TV were wrong for her? What if Zoe could be nice like this all the time? I so badly wanted to have a good relationship with her. I had always fantasized about homeschooling when she was just a tiny baby. Only when problems arose had I dropped the idea. Maybe it was time to go back to it. At least to try.

And that's how we began homeschooling.

Now, I'm not saying we never watch TV anymore. We watch a little. But cutting drastically back on the habit was crucial for us.

It took a full year without school and TV before Zoe learned how to play. We spent most of that year reading together and being outside (and we still spend most of our time that way). I read to her with my finger, and she naturally followed my finger with her eyes, thus learning to read by sight. Well, she didn't learn to read in one year, but after two years of reading together that way she was reading on her own. There's even a book about it that I read back then. It's called, Teach a Child to Read With Children's Books.

From the time I began homeschooling her, Zoe was also very interested in writing. She wanted to write years before she could read. The Charlotte Mason homeschooling philosophy calls this "copywork." And Zoe was really into it. She still is.

Simply by being around her older sister, Ashley has experienced our joys in homeschooling too. The low stress environment. The ability to learn about what interests you most. Field trips. Being outside. Both girls spend most of the day reading (Zoe actually reading, and Ashley looking at books). Ashley often wants to do whatever Zoe is doing. And they both use Time4Learning.com for educational games for an hour or so a day.

One of their favorite times of day is definitely Andy's bedtime reading. They have been obsessed with Burgess books (I think they've read three or four now). Also Andy has been reading them this book, Colonial Living.

This book isn't about war. It's all about daily living in the colonial time.

The illustrations are great.

Zoe was crazy for the hair designs :-)

Here's a list of some of some of the Burgess books too, in case you're wondering:

The Adventures of Sammy Jay

The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver

Old Granny Fox

Old Man Coyote

The Burgess Bird Book for Children

♥, Kelly

the trumpet of the swan by e. b. white

We recently finished, The Trumpet of the Swan Audio, by E. B. White. I was able to get it from the library, but it was only available on tape. This link is for the disk set.

I really got a kick out of E. B. White's accent, as well as the sound of the trumpet, in the audio version. The story is great also, with themes like courage, honor and love. Louis is a swan who is born without a voice, and Sam is a young boy who becomes a part of his life. To overcome this challenge, Louis, his father, and Sam have some funny, and some serious experiences. E. B. White blends fantasy and reality as Louis the swan learns to read and write, therefore able to communicate with humans like talking. It's altogether enjoyable to hear, especially told by the author himself. Time spent in the car is so much fun! :-)

Little House in the Big Woods

Click for the link: Little House in the Big Woods

Oh my gosh I could eat this book up, you guys! We actually finished it a week ago, so I'm a little late in posting about it. We also read it in just one week, because it was so good, we couldn't put it down. But before I get to all of our favorite chapters, I have to preface by saying that I could have done without the first few, which are entirely about hunting. And you could totally skip those parts; it wouldn't effect the story of the book. However, Zoe wanted to hear them, so we listened, and I really don't know how the Wilder family could have survived the winter in Wisconsin (at that time) otherwise.

As with all the great books we've read, there were times when Zoe and I looked at each other, like, "Ahhh! That's a bad word." (the word stupid was used in older books and classics) Or we would go, "Ahhh! We don't do that!" (they also used to spank, and we don't) But we know that these old books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, are stories about American history, and while we may not live our lives as they did, there is a lot we can learn from them, and beauty to be found.

There are so many moments of joy and love, in the lives of this family, in Little House in the Big Woods. Simple pleasures, like the cozy log cabin, alone in the big woods, snug in the snowy winter, and a wood fire burning, are charming visual images. There was cooking with Ma, homemade dolls, clothing and blankets, falling asleep listening to Pa's fiddle and songs, Christmas time, and our favorite, the "sugar snow," when the maple trees were ready for collecting maple syrup, and the dance at Laura's grandparent's house that follows.

This book would be worth reading, if only for the chapter about the dance at Laura's grandparent's house, not that we didn't find many other lovely chapters. Still, this one is so delicious. The horse drawn sleigh with bells, the view through the woods in the early morning, the way the sun rose through the trees on the way... it's so beautiful. We savored every moment of it. Then we read it to Andy that evening, and we read it again the next day :-) And then, we moved on, though I'm sure we'll be going back to it again soon! But first I think we'll finish Little House on the Prairie, which we have already begun.

The Hello Goodbye Window

The Hello, Goodbye Window was the 2006 Caldecott Award winner. Dear friends of ours gave it to us for Zoe and Ashley's birthdays that year. I didn't actually know it was a Caldecott winner until last summer when I bought it as a present for our neighbor's daughter, and saw the gold sticker. It is such an awesome book. It was instantly a favorite in our house. We've read it so many times that we quote the book :-) "You can be happy and sad at the same time you know. It just happens that way sometimes." And of course, as pictured above, "When I get tired I come in and take my nap and nothing happens until I get up." hahaha!

As the story and writing are wonderful, equally lovely are the pictures. I just want to jump right in! I would love to know Nanna and Poppy, visit their house in town, and look through their kitchen window to, "see if it's going to rain or be nice."

A side note, on the subject of reading - the book I read when I began homeschooling and have used to teach Zoe to read is: Teach a Child to Read With Children's Books (thanks to Amanda for recommending it!) Simply put, the technique is to just read to your children, from the time they are born. Read, read, and then read some more. At some point we started using our finger as we read, so Zoe could follow the words with her eyes as we spoke (she was probably 3 when we began using our finger as we read). I found I read slower this way, pausing on the first and last words of a sentence so she really sees them. As she picks up more and more "sight words" she enjoys saying them for me when I come to them in the text. There is no pressure, and no pain in learning to read naturally like this. Reading is as it should be, a pleasure.