The Crayon Man

The Crayon Man by Natascha Biebow and illustrated by Steven Salerno is a picture book to share with everyone.  It tells the story of how Crayola crayons came to be.  With crayons so common and inexpensive, I don't think much about them.  This new book is an engaging narrative to help others understand how the so popular crayons got their beginning.  It will help children see how a person's passion and determination can help bring a product to life for others.

summer journal

Something to do this summer with your family to extend your children's learning is to keep a summer journal.  This could be a joint project for all members of the family.  You can write every few days and have those with an artistic bent add pictures, or you could assign one person each day to jot down a few sentences about what happened that day.  It will be fun to look it over at the end of the summer and review the things that happened.

Last summer I did a blog post each week about summer learning activities.  I won't be posting with the same regularity, but I do plan to add a few posts throughout the summer.  If you are interested in looking back at the posts from last year, you can click on the tab that says summer learning at either the top or the bottom of the blog.  

east coast

I was in New England last week and here are a few of the things that I had the opportunity to see.I toured Mark Twain's house in Hartford, Connecticut.

I stopped in Springfield, Massachusetts to see these statues and a few more of Dr. Seuss characters.

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts was interesting and worth stopping to visit.  If I lived closer, I would go back from time to time.  The exhibits change (one about Peter Sis opens this week) and there is a place where you can make your own art. 

The green mountains of Vermont are beautiful.

A covered bridge in New Hampshire.

One of the many old buildings on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

The view from the Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island.

My favorite parts were the Mark Twain House, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and the ocean in Rhode Island.

blue squares

Last week I finished this quilt.  It is about twin size, and the finished blocks are three inches.  The fabric is all Robert Kaufman Kona solids.  I have made other quilts with all solids, but they were triangles (click here, here and here for pictures).  The squares work out pretty well since I quilted on the diagonal.  This quilt went to live with my youngest brother.

Baby Monkey, Private Eye

Baby Monkey, Private Eye by Brian Selznick and David Serlin is a mystery book for preschool age children on up.  The reason I checked it out was because it was thick but shelved as an early reader at the library.  I soon discovered it was because of the spare use of words.  Many pages have no words, the illustrations tell the story well.   Even though there are few words, the details in the pictures will engage readers beyond a first reading of the book.

The Read-Aloud Family

The Read-Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie is a book written for parents, but I found it interesting to read from a teacher's perspective.  Mackenzie encourages parents of all ages of children to read aloud to them.  She mentions that it will help them in school, but she also believes reading to your children will make your relationship with your children stronger.
If you want to improve your read aloud time with your children, she offers encouragement and ideas.  Another chapter gives suggestions on how to have good conversations with children about books.  The last chapters of the book are sorted into age groups (0-3, 4-7, 8-12, and the teen years) with book recommendations for good read aloud choices.