Jun1

Twice Upon a Time: Sleeping Beauty, The One Who Took the Really Long Nap by Wendy Mass

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IMG_0142Twice Upon a Time: Sleeping Beauty, The One Who Took the Really Long Nap by Wendy Mass, paperback novel, 172 pages, published by Scholastic Inc. in 2006.

Most people know the old fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, who is cursed by an evil fairy to and sleeps for 100 years. Sleeping Beauty, The One Who Took the Really Long Nap is a new version of this favourite tale, told alternately from both the side of the princess and the side of the prince.

Princess Rose is endowed with many gifts from her fairy godmothers as a newborn, but the oldest and meanest fairy in the land curses her instead to prick her finger on a spindle and die. The last of fairy godmothers can lessen the curse but not lift it, so when Princess Rose pricks her finger she falls into a deep and prolonged sleep, one which will last 100 years.

The Prince has worries, not least of which is his mother who is part ogre, and needs to feed on fresh meat twice a month. He grows up alone, with a page his only friend, but when he leaves, the Prince is on his own. He spends many hours and days wandering the forest near his castle, and he stumbles across an old castle that is completely overgrown with trees and vines. He attempts to gain entrance to this castle, but the vines won’t yield. The prince is determined to discover the secrets of this old castle.

An old tale retold and refreshed, and a very enjoyable one at that. The basic skeleton of the original story is retained, with the details expanded and tweaked to create a new version that is fun and engaging. Telling the stories of both the Princess and the Prince was a unique way to add dimension, and is done very well. The reader is introduced to the characters not just of the Princess as a beautiful girl waiting and her Prince Charming who dashes in and rescues her gallantly. The characters have depth, and flaws and realism, and I could conjure them in my mind throughout their adventure. There were also moments of humour, and I found it to be an entertaining read.

This story is most suited to middle and upper primary school children, but I think my second grader would enjoy it a lot too. Explanations of some things like pages, squires and spindles might be required for younger children, but that just adds to the experience of reading with your child.

This is the second book by Wendy Mass that I have enjoyed this year, and I will be looking for more by her in the future.

 

Jun1

Round Sensory Tub

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This week I collected some round objects for Baby T’s sensory tub. We had some soft and hard balls, an egg ring, plastic plate, cookie cutter, baby food jar lid, a round sponge, a toy ring, pom poms and other round lids.

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Baby T had a great time with this tub, especially throwing the balls around. He investigated each of the items, and we talked about the shape, colour and texture of the items with him. We also talked about other things that are round, like the wheels on the car.

He put the sponge through the ring over and over, before putting the pom poms through one at a time, and then trying the big woolen ball, which was much too large to fit through. He found this a bit frustrating, and after several attempts he went back to putting the sponge through the hole. He also spent quite a lot of time trying to put the small blue tupperware lid onto the cookie cutter. It was a good size to fit, but didn’t seal, so it kept falling off. The items that formed rings he wore as bracelets, even crawling around with them like that while laughing!

Putting the sponge through the ring.

Putting the sponge through the ring.

Trying to put a lid on the cookie cutter.

Trying to put a lid on the cookie cutter.

May28

Fly Guy and the Frankenfly by Tedd Arnold

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IMG_0095Fly Guy and the Frankenfly by Tedd Arnold, hardback, 30 pages, published by Cartwheel Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc, in 2013.

Fly Guy is Buzz’s pet fly and best friend. In this adventure they are playing monsters, doing monster puzzles and monster drawings, just before going to bed. When Buzz wakes in the night, he sees that Fly Guy has created his own monster!

This is a very easy chapter book great for first readers. The text is big, and the language simple, with great colour illustrations. My preschooler loves this story, she has a few Fly Guy books, and wants to get some more. The stories are short, but fun, and she likes that she can read it on her own. I highly recommend this book for emergent readers in preschool and lower primary school.

May28

Creepella von Cacklefur: Fright Night by Geronimo Stilton

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IMG_0090Creepella von Cacklefur: Fright Night by Geronimo Stilton, paperback chapter book, 112 pages, published by Scholastic Inc. in 2013.

Creepella von Cacklefur is a good friend of Geronimo Stilton. She lives with her family at Cacklefur Castle in Mysterious Valley, where many spooky things happen. Creepella writes books that Geronimo publishes, and Fright Night is her latest best seller.

Geronimo is in Mysterious Valley when he gets roped into being a judge for the scary poet contest known as Fright Night. Creepella’s father is one of the contestants, but during the competition he goes missing. And there is something strange about one of the other contestants too. It is up to Geronimo and Creepella to solve the mystery.

This is the fifth installment of Creepella von Cacklefur’s adventures, and like the original Geronimo Stilton books, it is full of colour illustrations and graphic text. The chapters are reasonably short and easy to read, making this a fantastic book for lower to middle primary age children. These stories are fun, and I like the funny names that the characters are given.

Despite the story revolving around a scary poet contest, this book wasn’t really scary at all. Both my preschooler and second grader thought it was funny, but I think a lot of that was because Geronimo is a scaredy mouse and kept trying to escape from the contest. There were some references to things that can be spooky, such as coffins and mummies, as is fitting for the theme of the story. This was another fun Geronimo mystery adventure told by his good friend, Creepella.

 

May25

Tom Gates: Excellent Excuses (and other good stuff) by L. Pichon

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IMG_0094Tom Gates: Excellent Excuses (and other good stuff) by L. Pichon, paperback novel, 345 pages, published by Scholastic Children’s Books in 2011.

Tom and his friend, Derek, live next door to each other and have formed their own band, the Dogzombies. They practice in Derek’s garage, with his annoying father popping in all the time to give them musical advice. Dogzombies needs a drummer, so the boys hold auditions, just in time for their first gig.

Tom has an interesting family that he has to cope with, including a mean and rude older sister, some unusual grandparents that he calls ‘The Fossils’, and twin cousins that keep trying to make him watch scary movies. And then there is school, too. Tom and Derek are in year five, where they have to avoid the school band, put up with the taunting and lies of the smug and sly Marcus, and adequately complete their homework to get merits and gold stars. None of which is always easy.

I thought this book was going to be really funny, but it wasn’t. A few times I found myself smiling, but not much really made me laugh, aside from the Dogzombies song about Tom’s sister, “Delia’s a Weirdo”, and when Marcus got his just desserts. Otherwise it was a fairly simple story of the antics of Tom and his friends as they navigate family and school life without getting into too much strife, something that is rather difficult for Tom. It’s not all bad though. The illustrations on every page of this book are simple, yet they definitely enhance the quality of the story, and help it to appeal to young readers. The story was also mostly believable, within the realms of the reader’s own experiences as a child, and the characters were interesting and diverse.

This chapter book could also be considered a graphic novel, due to the large volume of illustrations throughout the book. I found myself turning the pages far too often, as there wasn’t much contained within each page. While this was a little distracting for me, for a young reader, it would give them a feeling of satisfaction in being able to read such a thick book relatively quickly and easily. I think it is most suitable for lower to middle primary age students. My second grader started reading this, but didn’t get far into it before saying it wasn’t that interesting. She has greatly enjoyed other authors with a similar style, such as Dav Pilkey and Andy Griffiths, so I was a little surprised, but we all come across books that just don’t “grab” us.

 

May17

Clarice Bean Spells Trouble by Lauren Child

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IMG_0002Clarice Bean Spells Trouble by Lauren Child, paperback novel, 189 pages, published by Orchard Books in 2005.

Clarice Bean Tuesday and her friends Betty Moody and Karl Wrenbury are all in the same class at school. Their teacher, Mrs Wilberton, always thinks that Clarice Bean and Karl are getting up to trouble even when they are trying to be good. With the school spelling bee and the school play coming up, Clarice Bean finds life becoming complicated. She is trying to learn the dictionary for the spelling bee, but it’s not really helping her poor spelling much at all, and then Karl says she’s not his friend anymore, and her plans for the play don’t exactly work out. Clarice Bean is discovering that life often has more questions than answers.

Clarice Bean and Betty are big fans of the books and TV series about a girl-spy called Ruby Redfort, so there are many references to her throughout the story. Now Hollywood is making a Ruby Redfort movie, this is often all that Betty and Clarice Bean can talk about. Ruby Redfort is quite an important aspect of Clarice Bean’s life.

I had a little trouble warming to this story at first. It just didn’t grab me within the first couple of chapters, but I persisted, and overall I think it was worth it. I liked Clarice Bean, she was definitely unique and interesting as a character, but I thought that the other characters were a little typical of this type of children’s novel. There is the best friend, the dis-likeable teacher, and the uppity goody-two shoes teacher’s pet. Having said that, the characters and their interactions are still well written and move the story along nicely. Maybe I’ve just read a few too many books with a similar setting lately. I think what really threw me about this story was the obsession with Ruby Redfort. Ruby was on Clarice Bean’s mind all the time, and she often related Ruby’s adventures to her own life, or used phrases and advice from the show. It was a very important part of describing Clarice Bean, but it just felt like much too much for me. However, the character of Clarice Bean was still interesting and different enough to keep me reading, and I will probably try other books in this series.

May16

Mosaics Rainbow

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This rainbow was made using cardboard mosaic squares. A made arches of glue and then placed the squares onto the glue to create the rainbow. It took a while for her to do this, but I think it is a lovely rainbow.

Placing mosaic squares.

Placing mosaic squares.

This turned out to be an excellent activity for A’s fine motor skills, as she had to pick up a single mosaic square, and then carefully place it where she wanted it. Sometimes she had to lift a square up and place it down again if she missed, or move them about in the glue to get them into position. She was getting a bit tired towards the end of the rainbow, and I helped her finish the last arch of red squares.

Sticking on some clouds.

Sticking on some clouds.

A chose to make clouds using cotton balls. She packed the cotton balls in so the clouds are very fluffy.

When it dried, the paper under the rainbow became a bit crinkly where the glue had dried. As is A’s tendency, she did use rather a lot of glue, but it looks fine on the wall next to some of her other rainbow pictures.

May16

Jellyfish Picture

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Our pile of glitter and metallic glues.

Our pile of glitter and metallic glues.

We have a tub of glitter glue and metallic glue tubes that the kids use on all sorts of projects. I like using glitter glue over glitter as it is generally less messy (unless A leans in it and then spreads it all over the place…or dangles her hair in it), and it’s easier to place exactly where we want it. The downside is that the kids (especially A) put it on so thick it takes ages to dry, and we often need to leave our projects at least overnight to dry.

Drawing on her waves.

Drawing on her waves.

Today A used the glitter and metallic glues to draw a jellyfish picture. She started out painting fish, but they morphed into jellyfish. She also wanted to add an eel, but it grew tentacles and became a jellyfish too. She drew waves with some blue metallic glue, and sand with yellow glitter glue. There’s also some seaweed done in green metallic glue.

I like how glittery this picture is.

Drawing sand at the bottom of her picture.

Drawing sand at the bottom of her picture.

Making a jellyfish.

Making a jellyfish.

 

May16

Glitter Art

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IMG_9993The kids love glitter, but it gets everywhere! I find it in their hair, their school bags, their clothes, even when we haven’t used glitter for a while. Glitter and sand both appear in my house from origins unknown on a daily basis 🙂 It is nice for use in our art projects though, and this was a very simple glitter art, done in the backyard in an attempt to prevent excessive glittering of the house.

Applying glue.

Applying glue.

The kids each had some big sheets of paper and some glue. L used the glue to make shapes and words on her piece of paper, while A just added lots of glue all over her paper. Then they sprinkled glitter liberally over the glue. A was a bit wild with the glitter, and lots of it missed the paper (I was happy we’d decided to do this outside!).

Sprinkling on glitter.

Sprinkling on glitter.

Most of our glitter containers have little shaker holes to prevent the glitter coming out in one big pile, which make them a little easier for the kids to use. We had some different sized glitter, and different colours, as well as some rainbow star shaped glitter, which looked great on their pictures.

L's starry circle.

L’s starry circle.

 

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May16

Pipe Cleaner Rainbow

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Placing the pipe cleaners.

Placing the pipe cleaners.

Another rainbow made by A. This time she glued pipe cleaners onto some paper to form a rainbow. She chose the order of the colours, and I helped by applying craft glue (the bottle is almost empty). A bent all the pipe cleaners into arches herself. When she was finished placing the pipe cleaners, I used sharp scissors to cut the bottoms of the inside colours to even the bases up a little.

Making clouds.

Making clouds.

Gluing the clouds on.

Gluing the clouds on.

Rolling the pipe cleaners up like spirals to form the clouds was A’s idea, and I think it worked well. She rolled up some white pipe cleaners for this.  I was impressed by how carefully and neatly she did this.

Once she had some clouds finished, she glued them at the bottom of the rainbow.

Painting the sky.

Painting the sky.

Having made the rainbow on white paper, A decided that it should really be in the sky, so the paper should be blue. I suggested she could use some watercolour paints to paint her sky. A liked this idea, so out came the paints. She carefully painted around the rainbow and clouds, making a lovely blue sky for her rainbow.