Book of the week - In Flanders Fields

 Everyone knows the poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae. This is the poem and everything you'd want to know about the poem and war.

 Every other page of the book is a detailed description or account of some of the events that happened around the time the poem was written. 

The poem is well illustrated and gives a gimps of life during the war.

Book Sharing Monday - Happy New Year

 Happy New Year!! Usually I post these earlier than the actual date, but I decided that I'd start Book Sharing Monday again in the New Year and this is the New Year. I don't even know if anyone even does Book Sharing Monday anymore, because I've been out of the loop so long. I'll just do it on my own this week. Enjoy!

This is a book that we purchased from our local library. I'm not sure why people wouldn't want to borrow this book, but I'm not complaining, because now we own it! 

This has turned out to be the best book I've seen in a long time to explain to children how many different people around the world celebrate New Years. In some places New Years isn't celebrated on the same day as in North America. 

There are customs in this book that we may like to adopt in our home. It is an easy read, so young readers can read it on their own if they choose to. 

Book Sharing Monday - On Meadowview Street

 We found this story cool because it's about a little girl who started something. One flower that she tried to save kicked off a trend in her yard that changed their lives and their yard and it was never the same again. 

 As nature took over the yard and more animals and plants showed up the larger the natural area became. One day the family decided to sell their lawnmower. In the end their yard was completely different than everyone elses' and the other neighbours didn't seem to mind. Actually they did better than that. This little girl who saved a little flower changed the way many people think about their yards and changed the look of Meadowview Street! 

It's a great story! You will love it even more if you are like me and tired of seeing the perfectly manicured lawns all over and prefer a hike in the trees over a walk down your own street.

Book Sharing Monday - The Mushroom Hunt

This book is a great story about a family searching for mushrooms in the woods and goes into some detail about mushrooms. 

It's a great way to introduce mushrooms and create more interest in the subject. My kids didn't look at mushrooms the same again. It is my understanding that this book is part of a series called Read and Wonder. After going to their catalog HERE I'm surprised to recognize a couple of the books that we have enjoyed.

Book Sharing Monday - Manners Mash-Up

This is Manners Mash-Up A Goofy Guide to Good Behavior by many authors and artists! It's a fun way to look at manners and also to look at and see if we can recognize some popular book illustrators.

 Each spread is a fun illustrated layout of activities where people would need to think about their manners and each one is by a different illustrator. We laughed at many of the examples given and it was fun to try and guess who the illustrator was or what other books the person illustrated. The easiest one for us to recognize was Judy Schachner because we love SkippyJon Jones!

Here is the list of all of the illustrators.

Book Sharing Monday - Rocks in His Head

Rocks in His Head by Carol Otis Hurst is a true story about a Carol's father. He collected Rocks. Everyone thought that his obsession with rocks would never be worth anything. It would never help him amount to anything. They told him that he had rocks in his head.

No matter what anyone said and no matter what happened to his family due to the depression, he still collected, shared, and displayed rocks. He visited a museum often to see their rock collection and one day he ended up being hired because a man with rocks in his head was just what they needed!

What a great story!

Book Sharing Monday - A Series of Unfortunate Events

This was a great "used book" purchase. I recently discovered that we are missing three books from this series. I'll be keeping my eyes open for these. With this series, I purchased the first book (The Bad Beginning) and read it to see if it was something we'd like. All of us LOVED it, especially Austyn! So, I got as many as I could from our local small-town book store. As you can see from this picture, we are currently reading book 2 (The Reptile Room).

These books are about three children who have the worst possible thing happen to them; their parents die when their house burns down.They lose their parents and everything they own. This is how their series of unfortunate events starts. After that a family friend needs to place them with a relative, but since they were not close to any relatives they are placed with one distant relative after another.

Throughout the books the author uses his quirky personality to narrate how he has decided to write the books, apologizing for leaving the reader hanging, because he had to make it to a dinner party or for just writing a book with such sad occurrences (I don't think that was a word he used, but it seemed like an appropriate word).  These entertaining books are full of suspense and are full of big words that the author throws in to describe situations, people, or things, and then the he adds what the word means in each particular situation. This builds vocabulary in a very interesting way! I'm so happy that we found these books!

I also wouldn't mind watching the movie, since we've read the first book. I know that rarely movies are as good as the book, but it's always interesting to see how the movie differs from what we read.

The author's website is so much fun! Lemony Snicket is a mysterious author, whom we can't see! What a fun way to introduce himself to the world: faceless! There are games, activities, word searches and much more on the website. He has other books available as well. We may need to check those books out too!

Warning: if you have a child who is sensitive, the fear-driven suspense in these books may be too much to handle. My kids are fine with a book that might be a bit scary and may have corruption, greed, abuse, or even the possibility of murder. Your kids may not be okay with these things. You decide.

Book Sharing Monday - The Lorax

 We loved this book. The movie was good too. The Lorax has such a great message. It's all about greed and what happens to the environment when someone wants to make money from using resources. 

The Once-ler who is at fault ends up being the only one who can help to bring back a healthy environment in the end.

Book Sharing Monday - King Bidgood's in the Bathtub

 This book is so much fun! The pictures truly make the book. This is a story about a king who won't get out of the bathtub.

Each member of the court try to get the king to leave his bathtub, but instead are drawn in to the tub with the king by amazing, imaginative events. There is a feast, a battle, fish and to dance.

Book Sharing Monday - Harry the Tarantula

 This Up Close and Personal Interview with harry the Tarantula by National Geographic is a show you don't want to miss. This book by Leigh Ann Tyson is a quirky, yet information filled radio talk show with Caty-Did as the host and Harry the Tarantula as the guest. 

What a great way to learn about tarantulas!

Book Sharing Monday - Hello, Bumblebee Bat

 What a simple way to introduce an animal to children! Hello, Bumblebee Bad by Patricia J. Wynne asks the little bat easy questions that a child might ask and the bat provides answers.

This book is great for small children but also has enough information that an older child can find it interesting.

Book Sharing Monday - Lost! A Story in String

I wish I knew about this book about a month and a half ago. We were participating in a Homeschool Co-Op and one of the subjects I volunteered for was Pioneers. One of the activities we did in that class was learn how to use string to play and tell stories. This book would have gone excellent with that theme. Lost! A Story in String by Paul Fleischman is a story about a little girl who thinks that she is going to die because her electricity went out. 

The grandmother tries to calm the child and tells her a story about a little girl who really was in danger and for each page of this story there is a string picture made to illustrate what was happening in the plot.Using string to tell a story is one way to pass the time when there are no computers or TV's to entertain us. This is one of the ways that pioneers entertained themselves during their leisure time.

At the end of this book there are instructions on how to tell this story with string.

Book Sharing Monday - Play, Mozart, Play!

 Play, Mozart, Play! by Peter Sis is a quick book that gives your child an inside look at what Mozart's life was like during his childhood.

It has few words which is great for holding the interest of smaller children, but is fascinating enough that older children would enjoy it.

Book Sharing Monday - A Butterfly Is Patient

Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long did a wonderful job on this book about butterflies.

We thoroughly enjoyed this one!

With it's beautiful illustrations and descriptive wording, we learned what a butterfly's life is like. We learned things like how butterflies find flowers and how they help plants. What a great book to learn about butterflies!

Book Sharing Monday - Animalia

 This is a book we've borrowed and read many times since we have moved back to Ontario. I'm not sure why it's a favourite, but it could be the cool pictures and the interesting alphabetical descriptions.

Zoe usually is the one bringing this book home. Austyn's favourite page is the one on dragons.

We discovered, after reading this book a few times, that there is a child hiding in every picture. My kids love looking for hidden things in pictures, so they loved this book even more then they already loved it.

Book Sharing Monday - Let's Play

I don't usually choose books like this for my Book Sharing Monday posts. It just needed to be shared! This book is great for all of those homeschooling families who are looking for some fun traditional games that can be played with no items at all or things that are easy to find.

This book takes us back and puts a twist on all of the old games that were played when our parents were children. There was no technology and games were more social and interactive. What a great way to interact with friends and family. Put the board games and video games away. This book can be used in indoor, or outdoor play and with just about any age. There are different versions of tag, hide and seek, hop scotch and many more. The ideas in this book will show up in our homeschool park days, for sure!

Book Sharing Monday - The Mother's Day Mice

The Mother's Day Mice by Eve Bunting is a beautiful story about some siblings who venture out to find the perfect present for their mother.

We enjoyed the story and the illustrations. This is a book that we read last year and will likely read it again this year for Mother's Day.

Book Sharing Monday - Hush, Little Dragon

I'm sure you remember that beautiful lullaby. You know the one... Hush little baby…  don't say a word... Well we have a dragon lover in our house and a child who loves books with song so this book was a nice match for us. Boni Ashburn did a great job on re-writing this classic lullaby.



Book Sharing Monday - Imagine You're a Mermaid

 We enjoyed this book. It really takes a child to a place where they can imagine being a mermaid. There are activities at the end and the pictures are so unique and interesting.

 Zoe sent an email to the mermaid in the book, using the email address provided. We have yet to get a response back, but it was fun and she did such a good job of typing the email out.

Book Sharing Monday - The Squeaky Door

This is a cute story about a boy who stays at his grandmothers' house and is frightened by the squeaking door. He can't sleep so the grandmother gives him different animals to sleep with and in the end the problem is fixed. You will love how it ends up.