Bedtime Story Essentials

A couple of months ago, I wrote about going to the public library and was struck by a friend’s comment that “it’s so good to hear you talk about books again.”  While I haven’t ever stopped thinking about books, I definitely don’t share what we’re reading here at Family O often enough.  Since we read so much (too much?), and because I really do love to talk about books and reading, you can expect a lot more posts in this vein.   

Reading together is important.  When we read to young children, they cuddle close to see the pictures, snuggling into our arms and into the magic of a well-told story.  The words and pictures become an integral part of our relationships; my childhood memories of my favorite picture books are recorded in the voices of my parents.   Even now as I read some of these familiar stories aloud, I find myself reading them the same way my mom does…the same inflections, pauses, the same rhythm of the page turns.  Stories connect us.

While I share many stories with my kids throughout the day, bedtime is one of my favorite times for reading together. The following are the five bedtime stories that I consider essential for babies and young toddlers; these are books that both The Buster and Miss Meatball have consistently adored.   An added bonus, they are good enough to engage older children (think 3-6) as well.   

Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown

I know everyone always touts Brown’s Goodnight Moon as the quintessential bedtime story, but  I’m going to go ahead and risk heresy here and say that I like her Big Red Barn waaaaaay better.  The story is simple; we meet a variety of farm animals that, at the story’s end, go to sleep in the big red barn.  The Buster and Miss Meatball love pointing to the illustrations of familiar animals and making animal sounds as we read.  Like Goodnight Moon, the text has a soothing, easy rhythm and simple rhyme.  Unlike Goodnight Moon, it does not have any confusing pages that say “Goodnight nobody.”    

   

Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney

If you haven’t read this book, go out and get it right now.  With its all-too familiar situation (baby llama wants mama to come back upstairs after being tucked in) and catchy rhymes, you will likely find yourself quoting the text.  In fact, you may find yourself quoting the text when you wish you didn’t need to quote the text.  Example:  “Please stop all this llama drama and be patient for your mama!”

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archambault

While not strictly a bedtime story, this is the perfect book for the evenings we need to get extra wiggles out before saying goodnight.  My kids love the drum-like rhythm of the text and the bold illustrations of alphabet letters.  A good first introduction to the alphabet, the illustrations show both lower and uppercase letters.      

Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann

This may just be the perfect bedtime story.  The premise is simple: a group of zoo animals, aided by a key-stealing gorilla, follow the zookeeper home at bedtime.  The simple text and bright, engaging pictures make for a wonderful read-aloud, allowing room for the reader to add their own dialogue and descriptions.  This is Miss Meatball’s current favorite, which means we read it at least half a dozen times a day.  I’m not sick of it yet.  No, really, I’m not. It’s that good. 

How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight by Jane Yolen  

I like all of the “How do Dinosaurs” series, but How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight is my favorite.  With its illustrations of misbehaving dinosaurs and rhyming text, this book is a big hit with The Buster and Miss Meatball.  What’s not to love about a T-rex puckering up his lips for a goodnight kiss?  Because the dinosaurs do the same things that children do at bedtime, the pictures are full of familiar actions and objects.

How about you?  What bedtime books do you find your family grabbing night after night?         

That Post where I Rant about Education (also why I built a cell model)

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening helping my neighbor, Fatima, make a model of a cell. She came to my apartment armed with a Hobby Lobby bag full of things her mom and she guessed she might need to make a model (Styrofoam balls, pom-poms, pipe cleaners, paint, paint brushes, a glue gun) and full of questions: Did I know what a cell was? Could I help her make one? Did I have a computer with internet? A printer?

Fatima is in the seventh grade. She is bright, enthusiastic, and responsible. However, she was given an assignment that was beyond her capability to complete on her own. I remember plenty of projects like that in middle school and high school. You remember those, right? The kind of projects that I’m pretty sure our moms did most of (thanks again for all those dioramas, Mom).

Fatima’s family immigrated to the United States from Honduras. Her parents speak only limited English. They do not have internet or a working computer in their home. She told me she had asked her mom for help with her project, but that her mom didn’t know what a cell was. She doesn’t have her own science textbook, because text books are required to remain in the classroom. All she had was a grading rubric stating how many points the project was worth. The expectation was that the students could look up any information they needed on the internet.

Hey, I have a good idea! Let’s give a twelve year old a list of really big words like endoplasmic reticulum and phospholipids and say hey, go build a model of all these things with no picture to follow. Don’t worry; it’s only worth most of your grade for the quarter.

I’m not placing all the blame on the teacher (although there is a part of me that wants to march down to the middle school and complain about the lack of clear instructions or any kind of diagram to follow). I know that teaching middle school science is, in the best of circumstances, a hard job. We don’t have the best circumstances. Here in small-town Georgia, literacy estimates for our county show 21% of the adult population as illiterate, meaning as many as 6 students in an average-sized class come from homes with illiterate parents. That’s as many as six kids in EVERY class whose parents can’t help them with their homework.

I guess what I’m trying to say from up here on my soapbox is that if we want our communities to thrive, the education of children—ALL children—needs to be a priority. Even really great teachers cannot do it all alone, and in cases where the parents cannot fill in the gaps, we have a responsibility to step in and help out where we can. Give your time. There are kids in each of our communities who need extra help in order to succeed.

In case you were wondering, Fatima’s model turned out great.

Back to Normal

It hardly seems possible that August is over. Mr. O has started a new semester, piano lessons are back in full swing, and The Buster, Miss Meatball and I are easing into our school year schedule. It’s funny to me—even though my kids are way too tiny young (there’s nothing tiny about The Buster) for school, there is definitely a change to the rhythm of our days as school recommences for everyone who goes to school. With the approach of autumn, my summertime laziness disappears. Maybe it is because I’m an autumn girl—my birthday falls in early October, my favorite time of year. The weather here is still summertime hot, but I’m full of hope for a beautiful fall.

One of the mental challenges I have with writing this blog is that I feel like I should have some kind of “topic,” like it’s a paper that I’m writing and that if posts don’t form a cohesive or consistent theme that maybe I’m going to be docked points on the final or something. But then I remember that the theme of this blog is “what my family and I do that makes us happy/frustrated/crazy.” And also maybe “here’s my family and what they do/how they cope while I’m being happy/frustrated/crazy.” The topic is my life, and I’ve got a lot going on. Some of those goings on are going to be getting more blog-time. As we return to a more consistent schedule for our family, I am excited to dedicate more time to writing, both in this space and for myself.