Monday, March 22, 2010

Book Sharing Monday



Once Upon a Saturday by Leslie Lammle is a story about a little girl who wants to play but has a list of chores to do. She decides to tackle the chores in the fastest way she knows how... with her imagination. 

"Once upon a Saturday morning, June woke up early. 
Perhaps she would search for wild animals... 
or maybe learn how to fly...
or maybe even discover long-lost treasure.

Except for one BIG problem: 
THE LIST.
June had to complete everything on it before she could play.
The more she looked at the list, the longer it appeared.
As she grumbled to herself, 
"WHEN WILL I GET TO DO WHAT I WANT?"
she heard her mother "JOOO-OOOON! BREAKFASSS..."

The way she goes about her chores is very imaginative. It's a great way to enjoy doing some of the mundane things that kids sometimes need to do.  My son often has many imaginary things going on all around him throughout his entire day. I think this story touched us deeper because of his understanding of how wonderful and powerful imagination can be.

(I should probably mention that we are not into chore lists in our house. I have found that the best way for my kids to do chores is by asking them to help me or by stating that something needs to be cleaned up and that I'll help. I never use to do this. Actually chores were a nightmare at one time, but now we are all much less stressed and it just feels more natural this way. It feels like we are all choosing to help each other clean and tidy.)

1 comment:

l said...

That sounds like a cute book! I will put it on hold for us :)
Chores can be a bad experience if taken the wrong way for sure! In our house, we have a schedule, every day is a different area to be done. Monday is Laundry for example, Saturday kitchen so the kitchen gets cleaned top to bottom by everyone, Andre & Celeste clean the appliances, Adrienne the floor and me everything else on Saturdays. Sometimes the area doesn't really need work, so we do something else. But it's always team work and we get everything done fast this way too to make time for more interesting stuff :)