Bird and Little Bird

Tiny Treasures.

Despite the fact that all available surfaces in our house already seem to have collected their alottment of shells, stones, sticks and acorns, we continue to bring in "treasures." This little bit of bird shell was irresistable to both Mariam and I, and there was clearly no question that it had to come inside.  

We found the shell on the walk in front of the house, at the base of a tree where I will now admit, I did see a number of robins hanging around this spring.  Now we know what they were up to!  It is always nice to have a reminder of the fact that nature continues to be busy with Very Important Things while we are inside the house fussing about unloading the dishwasher and getting the small person to bed on time.

You know, perspective. 

Library Monday: Our Summer Read-Alouds.

Today is the first real and true and official day of summer vacation at our house.  And it was welcomed with open arms, let me tell you.  We had cake with breakfast, went strawberry picking and made ice cream.  Also, we read a chapter of our current summer vacation read-aloud selection, Abel's Island by William Steig. I'm sure that I've mentioned this book before since it has long been a favorite of mine.  But Mariam is just now old enough to really be able to appreciate it herself, and reading it together is turning out to be great fun.  It also has me thinking about the other books that should make our read-aloud list for the summer.  Here's what I've got so far:

 

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden

 

The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White

 

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

(I'm especially excited about finally convincing Mariam to give this one a go.  You can read all about why in this post from last fall.)

 

What's on your summer reading list?

In the Glue Department.

We are having ourselves a bit of a busy weekend, but I thought that I should stop by for a minute or three to let you know about a few of blogs hosting Alphabet Glue giveaways this weekend.  Pop on over to one of these lovely blogs to put your name in the virtual hat for a chance to win a copy of the new issue of Alphabet Glue!  

- The Crafty Crow- Cassi has five copies to give away but this one is only open until midnight tonight, so sooner is better!

- Follow the White Bunny- Nicole's giveaway includes a little interview with yours truly, a nice picture of my fluffy cat and a chance to win one of three copies of the magazine.  The comments close tomorrow at noon, Amsterdam time.  

- Earth Mama 101- Lisa has five copies of the magazine to give away, and her post includes a little interview as well.  Lisa's giveaway is open all week long and she has a number of ways that you can enter.  

Inventory.

I'm pretty sure that this violates some unspoken rule of blogging, but I thought that just for fun I would show you the big mess that I just picked up off of my living room floor.  This stuff, in fact, all came from an area of the living room area rug that is about two feet square.*  Mariam was dubious when I looked at her in exasperation and mentioned that she and her father were, in fact, the messiest people that I have ever lived with.  

"Mama," she said, "That is only because you haven't lived with any other people."

"Oh, I have," I said, "I had roommates.  College roommates."  Her eyes got wide when she heard my emphasis on this last bit, even though I'm sure that she has no idea how ridiculously gross nineteen-year olds can really be.

In other news, I was interviewed for a post on Odeedoh this week as a part of their Big Blog Family series.  You can read the interview here.

 

*Please note that there are no marbles pictured here. They rolled off the table before I could take the picture. 

Simple Compass Tutorial.

It is getting a bit late, and I have to be at school early tomorrow morning to pack up the rest of my classroom, but I have been meaning to pop my head in to let you know about a post that I did for The Crafty Crow this week as a part of Cassi's "A Book and a Craft" series.  Click on over to check out a sample project from Volume Two of Alphabet Glue; a tutorial for a simple compass that comes along with a review of a very, very favorite book of ours.  

Okay, off to bed I go.  When I return, I will officially be on summer vacation at long last. Sigh.

Library Monday: Alphabet Glue, Volume Two.

Good early summer morning, everyone!  Guess what, Alphabet Glue, Volume Two (it rhymes!) is ready at long last!

I'm am more than pleased to have actually made my own personal deadline on this one, and I am especially pleased because I think that Volume Two is filled with tons of super fun projects and activities that you all are going to love.  From detective stories and makeshift compasses to glowing story lanterns for your summer evening picnic table, the new Glue has a wide variety of inspiration to get your family busy with collaborative summer crafting.

 

Pop on over to the Alphabet Glue page to read more about Volume Two and to download a copy for yourself.  

Birds for BIG Kids Magazine.

As I mentioned last week, Mariam and I were recently asked to create a little collaborative mother-daughter art project.  Of course, my funny girl swore me to secrecy until she was finished with her picture (and was sure that she was happy with it).  She is apparently pleased with her work, and I therefore now have permission to share with all of you.  You can check out our contribution to the BIG Kids Magazine project here.

 

To find out more about BIG Kids Magazine and the upcoming launch date, check out their welcome page here. 

Children's Handmade Book Exchange: Round Four.

I've been thinking that it is probably about that time again.  A new season is about to begin, one that is usually accompanied by a bit more leisure time than usual, and if I ask me, this means that is the perfect time to organize another round of the Children's Handmade Book Exchange.  I don't know about you, but we are all sorts of ready to spend lazy summer days making stuff and eating popcorn for lunch, and I'm sure that a bookmaking/penpal project will be a popular addition to our absolutely packed schedule of sitting with our feet in the wading pool. 

To get a refresher on the origins of the exhange and a bit of information about how the whole thing works, check out this post from way back when.

As always, if you and your small people want in, I will require the following bits of information to be sent to me at birdmail@gmail.com:

-child's name

-child's age

-mailing address

I'll make a good faith effort to match everyone up with someone close in age, and will email out exchange partner information in the next week or two, once we have a nice sized group to work with.  Books should be mailed out by Monday, August 15th, 2011.

I hope you'll join us!

Research.

Despite the madness of the end of the school year, I am still making a very serious attempt to the get Volume Two of Alphabet Glue finished by the end of next weekend.  The kid detective theme is proving to be good fun, and I'll admit that I've gotten pretty into doing my "research" on the topic.  Has anyone else read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler lately?  Goodness.  What a book.  Yes, I know, it isn't technically about kid detectives, but there is a mystery to solve and it is so brilliantly written that I can't help but include it.  I think it is my new old favorite.  

Speaking of rock-your-socks children's literature, I'll be picking winners for the Carin Berger giveaway this evening.  In the meantime, you should take a moment to check out some of the book recommendations that folks have left in the comments on the post. There are some really excellent reads included, and my friend Evan, who is probably the person most directly responsible for inspiring my enthusiasm for finding awesome books to read with Mariam, shared a pretty great list of his own favorites in his comment.  

What else?  Oh, yes.  I know that a few of you out there have mentioned being parents to budding string musicians, so you might appreciate what Mariam and I have been listening to lately.  She is fascinated by this somewhat unorthodox playing of the cello.  I just think it's beautiful.  

 

 

 

Collaboration.

Mariam and I ended up with the dinner hour all to ourselves this evening, thanks to Dan having to stay late at the hospital.  Since it was just the two of us, and was also about ninety degrees outside, we decided that ordering a pizza was probably the way to go.  The two of us are in the middle of working on a little mother-daughter art project that we were asked to contribute, so an evening of pizza and painting it was.  Mariam made me promise to keep the project a secret until it's finished, so more on that next week sometime.  As you can tell from the photo, she's a bit farther along in her artistic process than I am...

Oh, and just a little reminder that there are still a couple of days left to enter the giveaway for the Carin Berger books.  See this week's Library Monday post to leave your comment and enter.