Sing, sing a song!

It's so important to sing with your children, from birth on up. Not only are songs a part of our cultural heritage, but you are teaching language and vocabulary when you sing to/with your child. Notice that when you sing, you enunciate your words more clearly, and you say them more slowly than when you speak. This is ideal for young learners of language.

A Treasury of Children's Songs: Forty Favorites to Sing and Playis such an essential book for children! There are 40 songs with words and music, including such classics as "Red River Valley," "Home on the Range," and "Shenandoah," as well as childhood favorites like "London Bridge," "Lazy Mary," "Pop Goes the Weasel" and "The Mulberry Bush." The songs are illustrated with art from the Metropolitan Museum.
There are so many picture books with just one song--kids love to see illustrations as you sing to/with them. How about Take Me Out to the Ballgame or There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly?
If I were buying books for a new baby today, this would be first on my list:A You're Adorable--a popular song from the 1940's that goes on to "B-you're so beautiful" and right on through the alphabet. Just what the new parents will want to sing to their baby!
And I love this book and CD! Lullabies: An Illustrated Songbookis also by the Metropolitan Museum, and also has illustrations from famous artwork, with classic lullabies to sing to the littlest listeners. Lullabies: A Songbook Companion is a CD with beautiful arrangements of these songs.

(If you are looking for the mysterious book to identify, it's Monday February 19th's post, below.)

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

March 2 is Dr. Seuss's birthday. Why not celebrate by having a Dr. Seuss-reading marathon. Go to the library and stock up, or get this wonderful book,Your Favorite Seuss: A Baker's Dozen by the One and Only Dr. Seuss which has 13 great Dr. Seuss stories, including The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Green Eggs and Ham, the Lorax,and many others! Often we forget the longer stories written by Dr. Seuss. The books like Green Eggs and Ham and Hop on Pop are really meant for beginning readers, not to be read to children...

Books with a religious message...

Two books have long been favorites of mine:The King at the Doorby Brock Cole and Yellow & Pinkby William Steig.
These are beautifully written and illustrated books by well-known authors---although the two books may not be as well-known. They deserve a wider audience.
No matter what your religious beliefs, they will give you something to think about. In The King at the Door, an old ragged man shows up at the door of the inn. He claims to be the King, and no one believes him but Little Baggit, the boy who works there. The old man claims to have been walking over the kingdom without his money, and requests food, water, and various other things. The innkeeper, not believing him, offers him various insulting garbage. When the king wants a coat to wear, the innkeeper offers him the old coat the dog has been sleeping on. Little Baggit rushes to give the old man his own coat. The old man promises to return in his royal carriage and bring Little Baggit to live with him at the palace. The innkeeper ridicules this. And on the final page.....a royal carriage returning for Little Baggit.
Yellow & Pinkare two wooden puppets, lying out on a hillside with wet paint on them. They theorize on how they might have gotten there, how, over millions of years, chunks of wood could have fallen from trees, been carved and shaped by the weather, and then eventually paint could have fallen on them. At the end of the book, a man walks up, puts them under his arm, and walks away. "Who is this guy?" Yellow asked Pink. Pink didn't know...An interesting counter to the theory of evolution.

Developing the sense of touch

I wanted to hug the woman I saw in the supermarket, with her small child in the cart. She was showing him the things she bought, and keeping up a running commentary. She showed him an eggplant and talked about the color, than had him touch the skin of it. Remember that odd feeling? Think of all the sensory experiences in the supermarket: eggplant, peaches, pineapple leaves...

Some time ago, I posted about using colored rice in a sand table or large tub for a winter day at the beach (rice definitely picks up more easily than sand). A related activity is to have a smaller container if appropriate for the item, and frequently give your child different things to feel and play with (using cups, scoops, funnels, etc), such as gravel,cornmeal, different types of dried beans,oat groats,popcorn kernels, cotton balls, noodles, birdseed, unsalted sunflower seeds in shells,and many other things. Try looking in the bulk food bins at your supermarket; if the item is mean to be cooked and eaten, then rinsing it off and boiling and eating it after it's used (with close supervision) for play will mean you get double mileage from it! As with any activity using small objects, supervise your child carefully until he is past the age of tasting or swallowing random things.
If you're into sewing, you can make simple shapes---square, rectangle, circle, triangle, or other shapes, from wildly different types of fabric--velvet, terrycloth, burlap, etc., and either stuff them with cotton balls or rags or make them into beanbags.
For a different sensory experience, try mixing 1 part water to 3 parts cornstarch. Add a few drops of food coloring if you like. This is truly weird to the touch and makes what is called "slime" or "oobleck". You can read Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss and color your stuff green!

Can your child solve these mysteries?

Do you know the story of the Mary Celeste? In 1872, this ship set sail, and it was found adrift less than a month later, with everything in order. The only thing was, all the people on board had disappeared! It was a sensation at the time, widely discussed in the press. No one ever found out what actually happened. I read this to many classes of 4th graders and thereabouts, and they loved trying to come up with an answer. This book would be even better with a parent and one or two kids: every page has fascinating detail, as well as side notes pointing out clues and giving information. At the end of the book is a list of possible things that might have happened, some silly and some reasonable. See if your children can solve the mystery of The Mary Celeste: An Unsolved Mystery from History! Some other books in the series are Roanoke: The Lost Colony--An Unsolved Mystery from History and The Salem Witch Trials: An Unsolved Mystery from History. These books are such fun to read, and in the process, kids are learning some interesting historical facts.

A few books for Black History month...

Goin' Someplace Specialby Patricia McKissack is a wonderful book for elementary age children. Tricia Ann, a young African-American girl, is going alone for the first time to "Someplace Special". On the way she encounters prejudice and symbols of prejudice. She wants to rest on a bench, but on the back of the bench is carved "For Whites Only". She steps into a hotel lobby and is ordered out. Finally she arrives at "Someplace Special", the public library which was integrated in the 1950's in Nashville and was a special place for the author during her childhood.
Nettie's Trip Southis a book which shows slavery from the perspective of a white child during the time of slavery, who visits Richmond and sees a slave auction and other sights which are profoundly disturbing for her.
Follow the Drinking Gourdis a picture book with wonderful illustrations which deals with the Underground Railroad and slaves following the North Star to freedom. The Reading Rainbow episode for this book is a must-see, featuring the singing group "Sweet Honey in the Rock".
The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights is a book for older children that tells the story of Marian Anderson and her performance at the Lincoln Memorial, after she was not allowed to perform in the DAR's Constitution Hall. It won a Newbery honor in 2005.

Books for a new baby

If you are looking for books for a baby, here are some every child should have. Most are available in board books. If you get board books, make sure they have all the text of the original book.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?by Eric Carle
Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
The Carrot Seedby Ruth Krauss
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin
The Doorbell Rangby Pat Hutchins
Each Peach Pear Plumby Allen and Janet Ahlberg
Freight Trainby Donald Crews
From Head to Toe by Eric Carle
The Gingerbread Man illustrated by Karen Schmidt
Goodnight Moonby Margaret Wise Brown
Harry the Dirty Dogby Gene Zion
Is Your Mama A Llama?by Deborah Guarino
Jump, Frog, Jump!by Robert Kalan
The Mittenby Jan Brett
The Napping Houseby Audrey Wood
Rosie's Walkby Pat Hutchins
The Snowy Dayby Ezra Jack Keats
Ten, Nine, Eightby Molly Bang
The Three Bearsby Paul Galdone
The Three Billy Goats Gruffby Paul Galdone
Tomie's Little Mother Gooseillustrated by Tomie de Paola
The Very Hungry Caterpillarby Eric Carle
Where the Wild Things Areby Maurice Sendak

Only a few authors have won both Newbery and Caldecott medals

I mentioned recently that William Steig was one of the few authors and illustrators to have won both Caldecott and Newbery medals. It's a short list. As far as I have been able to determine, only William Steig,Kevin Henkes, Holling Clancy Holling, Robert Lawson, Arnold Lobel, Ludwig Bemelmans, James Daugherty, and Alice Dalgliesh have won both awards. Just to clarify, the "honor" indicates a silver medal award for that year. The Caldecott is the medal for the most distinguished picture book, and the Newbery is for "the most distinguished children's book published in the previous year. (The award is limited to authors who are United States Citizens or who live in the United States, so you will never see Harry Potter on the list!) Some people say the Caldecott is the best picture book, and the Newbery is the best chapter book, but that is not always true. As you will note, Doctor De Soto, a picture book, won the Newbery medal.
The most recent to win both is Kevin Henkes, who won the Caldecott medal for Kitten's First Full Moonin 2005, won Newbery honors in 2004 for Olive's Ocean and in 1994 won Caldecott silver for Owen.
Holling wrote and illustrated a number of books including Paddle-To-The-Sea (Caldecott Honor) and Seabird (Newbery Honor).

Steig's Abel's Island and Doctor De Sotowon Newbery honors, while Sylvester and the Magic Pebble won Caldecott gold.

Robert Lawson won the Caldecott Medal in the 1941 for his family story They Were Strong and Good. In 1945, he won the Newbery Medal for Rabbit Hill. In 1958 he received Newbery honors for The Great Wheel (not currently in print).
Bemelmans won a Newbery honor for The Golden Basketwhich appears to be no longer in print. He won Caldecott honors for Madeline and the gold medal for Madeline's Rescue.
Alice Dalgliesh won a Caldecott honor for The Thanksgiving Story and THREE Newbery honors, for The Courage of Sarah Noble The Bears on Hemlock Mountain and The Silver Pencil.
James Daugherty won Newbery gold for Daniel Boone in 1940 and the Caldecott Honor in 1957 for Gillespie and the Guards--neither is in print now.
Many of these books and other medal-winning books, by other authors and illustrators, are still in print. I should caution you that for a few of the books that have won medals in the past, they were not books that have stood the test of time. Before telling your child to read all the medal books (as I've seen people do), I'd read reviews and see if the books still rank among the best books available for your child to read.