Apr. 9, 2008 Celebrate Earth Day with Barefoot Books Special Offer!
 Celebrate EARTH DAY with Barefoot Books cool book of environmental poems, The Sun in Me. It's also National Poetry Month so check out one of their great poetry collections.
Place an order today and as a thank you, receive a free Whole World Mini Edition ($9.99 value) — featured on Oprah's O List!
"A wide-ranging poetry collection covers sea, sun, sky, and earth illuminated by stunning illustrations. Nicholls has ranged far in her choice of poets, too, choosing John Updike and Charlotte Zolotow along with Issa and Buson. There's a traditional Albanian riddle and a handful of translations. Most of the poems are quite short and none are longer than a page. The illustrations are gorgeous -Krommes sketches her images on scratchboard, photocopies the result, then fills in the copies with watercolor. The result is a brilliant use of pattern and placement in space along with color that leaps from the page. The pictures are full of the flora and fauna of the natural world, but almost every scene also has a person, so readers and listeners can see their place in the sun. [T]hese poems speak for themselves and their message is clear: we are indeed of the earth." - Kirkus Reviews
|
*
Comments (0)
* Post A Comment!
* Permanent Link
|
Apr. 7, 2008 Story Nory Kids Audio Stories
Starting in November of 2005, Story Nory has published a free audio story every week! There are now over 100 collected stories, poems, myths, legends and fairy tales; even the complete text of Alice in Wonderland! Typically, each one is 10-15 minutes in length although, some may be shorter (or even longer, witnes Beauty and the Beast at 36 minutes). These stories are all being read to Prince Bertie the Frog by a young woman named Natasha. So, have fun exploring and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss out on any new stories!
I stumbled upon this quite by accident tonight, and I'm in love. The kids and I had been reading those wonderful nonsense poems by Edward Lear. I wanted to expose them to other people saying the poems so I did a quick search for audio. This was the top of the list and I (actually, James) spent almost the next hour at the site after we had finished the section about Edward Lear and the other little ones had gone to bed. He explored around, listened to The Ugly Duckling and then we discussed it. He liked the story so much that I'm planning next weeks curriculum around it.
|
*
Comments (0)
* Post A Comment!
* Permanent Link
|
Apr. 1, 2008 Past Selections Mar. 18, 2008 Bookcloseouts.com
I can't remember if I've ever mentioned this site before, but I was reminded of it today because I got a sales flyer. Anyway, this site is really awesome. Most of this stuff is 50% or more off retail and you never know what you're going to find. Right now my cart is sitting at $52 with original retail of $161 and that's, what, a 68% savings? And it's not just educational either. Pretty much anything you can think of, they'll probably have something in that category. There's also a scratch and dent category where the book is even further discounted. So set aside an hour or so, grab a warm beverage and enjoy looking for treasures.
Treasures that I found (that I may or may not have bought today, just ones that really caught me attention and looked great):
  
  
  
  
|
*
Comments (0)
* Post A Comment!
* Permanent Link
|
Mar. 1, 2008 Past Selections Feb. 1, 2008 Past Selections Jan. 4, 2008 Constellations
James loves learning about the sky and he can be often found out gazing at the stars or the moon. So it was natural that we started teaching him astronomy and by extension geography and history. The Dangerous Book for Boys itself has a great section about astronomy. Often his is found on Google, looking up different aspects. Since he's a pre-reader, for him it 's mostly looking at pictures or if we're able to be with him, we'll read stuff for him.  Today, Carey brought home an awesome deck of cards for him: Constellations ~ A Deck of Knowledge Cards. It's totally awesome. It contains 48 cards with a look at 46 sidfferent star groups. each card contains a constellation on the front and info on the back. The info contains such things position and area, brightest star and number of visible consituent stars, the corresponding zodiac sign, nots about the constellations origin and history, etc. A card full of astronomical terms and abbreviations as well as a card of general information is also included.
So for instance, I randomly grabbed Cancer. Some of the information I learned: - The pronunciation - kan' sir
- Fourth sign of the zodiac in the Northern Hemisphere June 22 - July 22
- Brightest star is Al Tarf
- There are 23 visible stars
- Although this was seen as a crab by the Greeks, the Egyptians saw it as a scarab.
Cool huh? And this isn't all of the information contained either. There's a bit of a myth, a bit of history, astrology, etc. So far the kids have been having a blast looking at everything and asking about different cards. Jame only knows the The Big Dipper (not included) whose seven stars also make up part of Ursa Major, which is included.
|
*
Comments (1)
* Post A Comment!
* Permanent Link
|
Jan. 1, 2008 Past Selection of Random Books for 2008 Jan. 1, 2008 Past Selections for Weekly Read-Alouds for 2007
Past selections for our Weekly Read-Alouds for the year 2007
OCTOBER
~ October 1 ~
  
  
  
~ October 8 ~
  
  
 
~ October 20 ~
  
  
 
~ October 28 - November 4 ~
  
  
 
~ NOVEMBER ~
~ November 4 ~
  
  
~ November 11 ~
 
 
 
~ November 18 ~
  
  
~ November 25 ~
  
  
~ DECEMBER ~
~ December 2 ~
  
  
 
~ December 9 ~
  
  
 
~ December 16 ~
  
  
 
~ December 23 ~
  
  
  
|
*
Comments (1)
* Post A Comment!
* Permanent Link
|
Jan. 1, 2008 Past Selections Dec. 1, 2007 Past Selections | |
