If you are looking for a different and super fun book, I’ve found it for you.

I read about How Many Jellybeans a few weeks ago and ordered it right away. For some reason, it then sat on top of our piano until this morning when the girls needed a distraction. Caroline began NJ ASK testing this morning and there was a fair amount of anxiety in our house. More on this later but for now just fun…

How Many Jellybeans explores the concept of huge numbers in a hugely fun way and I love finding math books as plain old math is not my thing.

I knew this book was a big hit when Katherine asked if we could bring it with us to the beach to share with her cousin. And just in case you think we are taking a spontaneous spring beach trip you would be wrong. Katherine loves this book so much that she is planning ahead for our summer trips.

We always visit a great candy store during our vacation. Perhaps one million jelly beans will be on the menu this summer…

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The girls were fascinated by the Kentucky Derby this weekend.

Fascinated, at least, by the horse’s names as we marveled at just how many different types of names there were.

The girls liked Bodemeister, named after Bob Baffert’s son. I preferred Daddy Long Legs and Rob cheered for Gemologist.

When I’ll Have Another burst in to the lead, we all marveled at his unusual name.

I could watch Katherine’s wheels spinning as she began to understand how much meaning could be placed in the name of a horse.

She looked up and said, “Why doesn’t anyone name their horse, I’m Going to Win This?’

Huh. Perhaps we should go into horse racing cause I think there just might be something to that name…

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Sometimes peer pressure can be a good thing.

I have been encouraging Caroline for months to read new books and she has been fully in a re-reading mode that just won’t stop. I have bought and borrowed more books that I think she will love, with no success.

About a month ago, for the blink of an eye, Caroline did read Lois Lowry‘s Anastasia Krupnik and adored it. Of course, I went and found every Anastasia book I possibly could and for the past month, they have sat, unattended on Caroline’s bedside table as she re-reads and re-reads other books.

Yesterday, though she came home and said, “Do we have All About Sam? I heard it was good?”

I showed wonderful restraint and simply moved the book from the bottom of the pile and placed it on her pillow. I did not say, “Yes! I have been showing you that book for a month now and you have rejected it!” Although, maybe I said it by writing it here but we’ll let that go…

I suppose it doesn’t really matter how books get into Caroline’s hands. What matters is that I finally had to force her shut off her light again last night. It’s been a long time since Caroline’s been caught up in a good read. It was great to see her there again…

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I am pretty strict as far as what I buy for snacks. Or as Caroline would say, I’m pretty “weird.”

While Cheez-Its are certainly delicious they are not in our regular rotation. Yesterday though, we were visiting with a friend who had this yummy cheesy (or cheezy) snack and Caroline was hooked.

I must have heard, “Why don’t we ever have these?” about one hundred times.

Because I worry that if I restrict too much, the girls will eat everything in their friend’s pantry when given the chance, I tend to honor specific requests.

Who knew how happy I would be while walking down the snack aisle this afternoon?

There is such a thing as Junior Scrabble Cheez-Its.

Now if you can play Scrabble and tons of other word games with your snack, I don’t quite care how many preservatives are in it.

Eat up. And spell while  you’re at it…

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My father in law accomplished something incredible last week.

He ran around the world.

Google states that the distance around the world is 24,901 miles around the Equator. If you consider that there are many, many marathoners and extreme runners out there, you might realize that lots of people have probably, in fact, run around the world.

This fact though does nothing to diminish Frank’s accomplishment. His feat is amazing because of both how it began and the fact that he knows it. To say that this man kept meticulous records would be an understatement.

Frank began running in 1973. He had just quit smoking and was motivated to get in shape. He would drive to the high school track, run around it once and drive back home. Not exactly the stuff of elite running.

But he did begin logging his runs from the start. For this reason, he knows that for the first six years, he only averaged 60 miles. Had he maintained his pace, it would have taken him 400 years to make it around the world.

Over time, though, Frank began running not driving to the track and in time he left the track all together. Eventually, he was averaging 600 miles per year. Now, when we go to the beach as a family, Frank, who originally ran 60 miles in a year, strives to run 30 miles during that one week. Not a bad improvement.

Frank’s 259 pages of records include the following for each run: temperature, time of day, final heart beat, distance, total time and my personal favorite, amount of change found on the street during that run.

The picture above, for example, was taken at the Ridgewood Memorial Day 10K Run in 1985, the first time Frank “ran his age”. He ran the race in 43 minutes at the age of 43.

While the records are clearly complete, for a long time, Frank only added the monthly totals once a year. It wasn’t until a few years ago that he realized he had the chance to run around the globe before his 80th birthday.

And then he became a man with a goal. Why 80 when there was another big birthday fast approaching? This past January, Frank realized he only had 270 miles to go. So he ran and he ran and he ran.

And on my birthday, Frank made his way around the globe. One month before his 70th birthday.

I love this story. It is the story of determination and goal setting.

It is also the story of writing things down. I find myself wondering how many amazing accomplishments and milestones go unnoticed simply because we fail to document them.

So take this story and run or read or write. But pay attention to what you are doing. And keep a record of it. Who knows what we could all do with a little more attention.

 

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I love it when I can share new resources… Now this might not be new for everyone but if it’s new for you, you’ll be doing a happy dance by the end of this post.

Teachers Pay Teachers.

There are a gazillion teachers out there who have more than 24 hours in their days. These people create the most amazing resources for their students. And now thanks to Teachers Pay Teachers, they can be rewarded financially for all their hard work and those of us with only 24 hours at our disposal can benefit as well. 

For relatively small amounts of money- honestly, only a couple of dollars in most cases- I have downloaded fantastic games and activities. I am using this site like crazy for tutoring clients as well as the girls and so far everything I have used has been a big hit. I have found certain teacher that I love. I now follow them and every time they create something new, I get an e-mail so I can check out their latest products. And many of these teachers also write blogs allowing me to learn some many more new things each day. 

So all you need to do is go to the site and browse or enter a specific search word. So far, I have searched for cvc words, sight words, addition facts and multiplication facts all with great success.

So, if you know about this site, go spend more time there and if you don’t, enjoy this great new find…

 

 

 

 

 

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So yesterday, I relied on funny words to fill this space during a week with little time for writing.

Today I will rely on a simply wonderful image..

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I keep promising myself that my next week will be calmer, less scheduled than the current one… Somehow that is not happening. I am finding myself running around without a minute to sit and write and read this week so here is a little something short and sweet. I know I need a reason to smile. Maybe you do too. Enjoy!

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
-Groucho Marx

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I tell parents that there are two ways kids learn to read. One is all at once and the other is slowly and steadily.

Katherine has taken slow and steady to new lengths. The child has been ‘reading’ now for close to two years. She began reading simple three letter words when she was barely four. Now at six, she has mastered simple text, easily decodable words and a large number of sight words. She has never shown any signs of a reading difficulty. She is simply taking her time. I have been patient with her and with myself, never encouraging her to do more than she is comfortable to do.

I came downstairs tonight to see Katherine laboriously reading Ramona’s World with Rob. Her reading was slow and you could call it painful. However, she is now clearly self-motivated to move herself to the next level. I would never have suggested such a huge leap for her but who knows… it might be just the thing she needs.

Time to step back and watch it happen…

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Frequent readers may have noticed that one of my main characters has been a bit absent at the blog. Caroline, in her tween-ness, has asked me often to not include her in my writing. Pictures, stories and funny comments have all been deemed “too embarrassing” or “really weird.” I have respected her privacy but also anticipated the conversation that we had last night.

We were talking about Caroline’s soccer game while having dinner with my in-laws. It was a crazy game as the girls played through cold, wind-swept rain. It was further crazy for our family as Caroline both scored her first goal and played goalie. Playing goalie was a new experience for Caroline and one for which she had not trained. It was understandably hard. Her feelings (and mine) were incredibly conflicted. She was equally proud of her goal and worried about the goals she had let in, upset that she had “let down her team.”

During dinner, the topic of the blog came up and talk turned to some of the funny things I had written about Katherine or ideas that I have for a future post about my father-in-law. Stay tuned by the way, it’s a great one!

Someone suggested that I could write about Caroline’s goal and I said what a great idea that was expect that Caroline had asked me not write about her any more on the blog.

Turns out there are exceptions to this rule.

I love that my girl is so proud of herself that I can now write that she scored a goal.

I also love something else about her.

During the game yesterday, I stormed up and down the side line carrying on that she should not be playing goalie. She hadn’t trained and she was crying. Rob continued to remind me that she was doing fine and it was a good learning experience for her. I disagreed vehemently with him and anyone else who would listen.

And then last night we received an e-mail from Caroline’s coach asking if they could train her to be back up goalie. I, of course, wanted to respond in the negative immediately, but decided it was only fair to ask Caroline.

Well, guess who wants to be back up goalie? Guess who wants to learn something more about something that was hard for her?

I am sure I have written some really weird and embarrassing things here, but I have also had the chance to write about a pretty wonderful girl…

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