Tag Archives: Show Me How! Build Your Child’s Self-Esteem Through Reading

Three Holiday Gifts From Show Me How!

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The Holiday Season is here and we have three holiday gifts for you from Show Me How!

Buy a copy of Show Me How! Build Your Child’s Self-Esteem Through Reading, Crafting and Cooking on my website.

You will receive:

  • Gift #1: FREE SHIPPING!
  • Gift #2: Beautiful HAND-CRAFTED fabric bookmark for you!
  • Gift #3: Shiny new pencil for your child!

Who should buy a copy of Show Me How?

  • Parents and grandparents of children ages 2-8
  • Teachers of children ages 2-8
  • Daycare Providers
  • Children’s Librarians
  • Childcare facilitators, social workers and adoption agencies

How will Show Me How! Build Your Child’s Self-Esteem help your family?

  • Builds your child’s self-esteem…kids with a positive self-image are more willing to accept new challenges and keep trying if they fail at first.
  • Quick and easy activities…cut out the planning time of trying to think up new things to do with your kids.
  • Helps strengthen the parent-child connection and creates a life-long parent-child bond.
  • Encourages kids to become lovers of books and reading…they will have greater success in school and in life.

And don’t forget…THREE HOLIDAY GIFTS FROM SHOW ME HOW!

Who recommends that you buy this book?

DON’T DELAY!!!  When you buy the book, you will receive THREE HOLIDAY GIFTS FROM SHOW ME HOW!  And, did you know that a portion of your purchase is always donated to several children’s organizations…so you are helping others as well.  This coming week, we will be donating to the STAR PROGRAM (Sit Together and Read) sponsored by the Community Partnership for Childhood Development.  Many families cannot afford to buy picture books for their children…Show Me How is going to make sure that some of those children WILL have books this holiday season!

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Thanksgiving Day: Thankful Thoughts and Thoughtless Tragedies

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Spending time with each helps keep the spark alive…relationships are strengthened when you take on challenges together.

 

Today, November 22, 2012, is Thanksgiving.

It is also the 49th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

They say every cloud has a silver lining.

And I have found that to be true.

Last Valentine’s Day, I did a guest post on Bob Brody’s Letters to My Kids blog, sharing with my children how I met their dad.   Mr. Brody encourages parents to write letters to their kids…here’s an excerpt from that post.

Dear Jason, Peter and Caroline,

 Your future dad and I met as freshmen in college. I sat in front of him in English 1.1 and he sat in front of me in Social Science. Both of us were dating other people pretty seriously. And so for the first two months of the fall semester, we were just classmates who spoke with each other as we walked into or out of the room.

Then came November 22, 1963. The intercom crackled. “The President is dead!”

For several moments no one reacted. And then everyone did. Screaming! Crying! Young men pounding their fists on their desks!

As we all exited the classroom, your future dad was right behind me.

“I’m going to walk home!” I exclaimed to no one in particular. “I can’t face sitting on the bus squashed between hordes of people!”

“I’ll walk with you,” the voice behind me said. “Where do you live?”

As it happened, we lived only four streets away from each other.

By the way, there are some girls who look fantastic even when they cry. If only I were one of those. Whatever eye makeup I was wearing was smudged and probably dripping onto my cheeks and chin. Plus, my nose was red and my skin blotchy.

No matter. Your future dad and I walked and talked for over an hour, until we reached my house. And when we looked at each other, I know we saw into each other’s souls and we wanted to walk and talk together forever.

Our relationship grew stronger and closer during that next semester. By the summer, we were dating each other exclusively. We got married as soon as we graduated from college. And our relationship has flourished ever since. To this day, we remain the most loyal of soul-mates.

Out of tragedy, then, came an unexpected opportunity for love. In a sense, sad to say, it took a death to bring you all to life. We’ve never forgotten that, and we never will.

Love,

Mom

 

1993…The Year of the Graduations (Junior High, High School and College)

Children love to hear about how their parents met.  They want to know about their parents’ childhoods…did dad get into trouble for misbehaving in school…did mom play with dolls or tag after an older brother.   Kids enjoy hearing about when they were babies.  Writing letters to your children helps give them the knowledge of experiences and strengthens their feeling of belonging…a very important component of self-esteem!

Have you ever written a letter to your child?

What would you say?

I wish everyone a most Happy Thanksgiving Day!   Will you be rushing out tomorrow for the Black Friday specials?  If you are looking for gifts for parents or teachers of young children, I encourage you to save yourself time and money…Show Me How! Build Your Child’s Self-Esteem Through Reading, Crafting and Cookingis the perfect present…and you can quickly and easily buy it online.  If you are looking for gifts for young children…check out my Top Ten Gifts List.  You will not have to worry about buying batteries or finding an unused electrical outlet for ANY of these items!

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PPBF: Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse…Be Thankful for Who You Are

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Today is Perfect Picture Book Friday where I link up with Susanna Leonard Hill’s fantastic group of picture book writers, illustrators, librarians and others who contribute a picture book review.

Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse

Written and illustrated by Leo Lionni

Publisher: Pantheon Books (1969)

Ages: 3 and up

Themes:

Believing in yourself, friendship

Opening lines:

“Help!  Help!  A mouse!”  There was a scream.  Then a crash.  Cups, saucers, and spoons were flying in all directions.  Alexander ran for his hole as fast as his little legs would carry him.”

Synopsis:

Alexander, a real mouse, is jealous of the toy wind-up mouse who lives in the warm house and is loved by the children.  He courageously asks the powerful lizard wizard if there is some way he can become a wind-up mouse.  When he finds the wind-up mouse has been thrown away, he decides to use his magic wish to turn the wind-up mouse into a real mouse so that the two can live together and be friends.

Why do I like this book:

This book is a Caldecott Honor Award winner!  Mr. Lionni’s simple yet bold illustrations capture the pathos of the story.  And the message is so powerful…children (and adults) often think that ‘the grass is greener’ and that they would be happier being someone else.  Our happiness comes from within ourselves…being someone else cannot make us happier.   When Alexander realizes that he is the fortunate one, he also realizes that life would be sweeter if he had a friend to share it with him.  This is a perfect story for the Thanksgiving season…and I will be sharing it this coming Sunday in my new Show Me How Picture Books and Crafts for Kids series on YouTube.

Related Activities:

PAPER MOSAIC FLOWER FROM THE LIZARD WIZARD’S GARDEN

Photo courtesy of http://www.education.com/activity/article/Paper_Mosaics/

You will need: One piece of dark construction paper, several small pieces of colored construction paper cut into small squares, glue stick and a pair of scissors.

  1. Talk to your child about the illustrations in the book…many of them look like cut-paper collage and mosaic…in fact, if you have old wallpaper sample book or old magazines, you can use those instead of the small pieces of colored construction paper.
  2. Help your child plan out the flower (or whatever your child decides to create on the page)…you can help draw the picture with marker to define each section…or your child might decide to just fill the page with the small cut paper in his own design.
  3. Use a dab of glue to stick each piece onto the paper.
  4. When dry, hang in a place of honor.

Lesson guide for teachers: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/alexander-and-wind-mouse-discussion-guide

Dramatization of the story for students: http://www.csuchico.edu/~cguenter/FourArts/DR/DRalex.html

Because November is such a special month and there is so much going on, I want to reshare some links to wonderful events going on in the kidlit/picture book community because I never know when someone new visits my blog who might not know about them.

  1. Picture Book Month: Visit the website of Dianne de Las Casas to join in the month-long celebration of PICTURE BOOKS!  Every day, a different picture book champion (author, illustrator, etc.) is guest posting…you won’t want to miss these….they will inspire you and help you remember just why you love to read and write picture books.
  2.    Picture Books and Crafts for Kids: Please pass the word about this new YouTube series for parents and teachers and kids…every Sunday, I’ll be choosing a picture book to read aloud…and then I’ll do a simple related craft project.  Two weeks ago, I spotlighted Yes We Can by Sam McBratney and last Sunday I read The Little Red Caboose by Marian Potter and we created a geometric-shape train picture.  This coming Sunday, I will be reading Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse and we will be making the flower mosaic.  Each segment highlight a parenting problem such as setting up good bedtime routines or a children’s challenge like learning to be a good friend and believing in oneself.
  3. PiBoIdMo:  Picture Book Idea Month is the brain-child of children’s author,Tara Lazar.  If you signed up, you are already immersed in the world of picture books…trying to come up with 30 fresh ideas for picture book manuscripts during this month.  But, even if you have not joined the challenge, please run over there…don’t walk… to read an AMAZING guest post EVERY DAY this month…these posts will instruct and educate you…as well as motivate you to write the picture book that every child will want to read over and over again.
  4. Please don’t forget about Reach Out and Read…we need to GAB (Give a Book) before they can ROAR (Reach Out and Read).  If everyone who loves to read donates enough to buy just one book, the New York City Bellevue Hospital program (one of the largest in the country) will be able to replace the books that were lost in Hurricane Sandy.
  5. 12×12 in 2012: November is already half-way gone…and I’ve finished my November picture book draft for Julie Hedlund’s 12×12 Challenge to write a picture book draft each month…hurray!
  6. I also wanted to share an article from the University of New Hampshire’s Penman Review…three tips for writers before their book is published.

 

HOLIDAY GIFT IDEA

I know the media is starting its holiday campaign to turn our young children into super-consumers…but young children don’t need fancy electronic gadgets…they only need a good picture book, a few simple inexpensive art supplies (like paper, crayons or markers, safety scissors and glue stick) and your positive participation.  If you are looking for a great resource that will give you 100 picture book summaries and easy matching craft and cooking activities, you can purchase a copy of Show Me How! Build Your Child’s Self-Esteem Through Reading, Crafting and Cooking.  At under $20, this book makes a PERFECT gift for any parent or teacher of children ages 2-8…as well as for daycare providers and grandparents.  No batteries required…powered by a child’s imagination!   If you order from my website in the month of December, there will be a special bonus gift included with each book (more about that next week)…the price is a little more than on Amazon…but I’m also offering FREE SHIPPING…so it evens out the cost.  Take your pick…whichever site you want to use…just make sure you grab a copy for those special people in your life who would benefit from having this award-winning resource!

This post is part of a series for parents and teachers called Perfect Picture Book Fridays hosted by Susanna Leonard Hill.  Click on her link and find lots of other picture book suggestions with summaries and activities.   This is an unbelievable resource for any parent, teacher or children’s librarian.

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