Kid Stuff!

There are some kid things we have really been loving lately, so I've been wanting to compose a list here for you! I am always looking for good kids' book, music, craft or activity ideas, so your contributions in the comments are coveted! Here goes:

• Creating Clever Castles & Cars from boxes and other stuff.  I found this book at the library and Natalie was enthralled from the get-go. We haven't had many big boxes come through here lately, but after we collected three diaper boxes, we fashioned a little train this morning. I will probably order a copy for us to keep because it really is pretty cool and definitely inspires imaginary play!

After we tied our train cars together, they got to decorating it. It was hours of fun and required very little from me :)

• Crazy Praise II. This is one of my favorite Christian kids' CD's. We listen to it all the time and it's great for dancin'. I even use it for children's church. Here's a little demo:

• We have had some rough weeks with Natalie's reading. She absolutely hates the textbook we've been using and it was causing some major attitude every single day at school time. After prayer and deliberation, I ditched it. It's a really good textbook. But, she despised it. And with something as important as reading, I thought it was worth seeking out ways to teach her that appeal to her. She absolutely LOVES these little Now I'm Reading sets. The headway we made in the textbook was enough to get her going and she can read the level 1 set with very little help at this point. We'll be starting the Level 2 set soon, I think! (We have some B.O.B. books too, but both Natalie and I like these a lot better).

• PBSkids.org especially the SuperWhy games. This site has been a good tool for us lately, also helping with the reading. Plus, they're learning to use the computer just a little bit too. The girls can only play when Kelby's napping, though, because he's more likely to remove the space bar from the keyboard than anything else :)

I think that's all for today. Feel free to add to my list. If there's enough comments, I could compile a nice little link list in a future post for us all to have at our fingertips :)