Life Size Candyland

 

12-13-2024

Once upon a time, I was on top of Christmas preparations. I was the stage manager at the Fireside where rehearsals for the Christmas show started as early as the beginning of September. If I wasn’t finished shopping and addressing Christmas cards by Thanksgiving, it wasn’t going to happen. Each year I made it happen. With a month to wrap my gifts, they were a thing of beauty.

Then teaching and small children changed the timeline and threw obstacles in it. Now I’m lucky if I remember who’s on my shopping list and PLEASE don’t ask me to give you any gift ideas. All I will come up with is chocolate. It’s perfect: it always fits and I know where to put it.

This year shopping is still an issue as I haven’t started it yet, and if I don’t buy a tree soon my daughter will not be happy with the Charlie Brown option I’ll be left with. However, I’m taking off the week of Christmas and have festive plans. I’ve asked permission to nab the five-year-old grandson (“You can have him whenever for as long as you want”) to bring him to Miss Maria’s life size Candyland game which shall take over the Lower-Level December 26^th and 27^th. Pre-School Playdate and Storytime those dates will still meet as the game is officially open 1:00-3:00.

For months I’ve been making large purchases (Remember the new couches, chairs and bookshelves?) and saving the boxes. Miss Maria and her family have been converting them into locations for the game board. Max and I are so there. As the program is intended to be for all ages, I recon we’ll be bringing eighteen-year-old Emma along. Sadly, someone has to help me prevent Max from cheating or crying should he loose. She’s a good sport who loves her nephew. In my favor, it will be afternoon and likely involve taking them out for lunch.

Afterward if the weather permits and a pass is available for checkout, maybe we’ll spend a day looking at animals or checkout the Bluey Dance Party from the Library of Things. You know, unless a patron beats me to them in which case there could be a tent or telescope or real bugs in acrylic available. You know, unless a patron plans ahead and checks them out for their children to use over break. Of course, I would put up the tent outside. We’d use it in the living room and save me from washing all the blankets from the linen closet used for a makeshift tent.

I return to work as a worker on Monday, December 30^th. If we haven’t returned Max by then, Emma can bring him back to watch the Family Movie about a robot at 3:00 pm.

Reading Now: What I Ate in One Year and Related Thoughts by Stanley Tucci (On a side note, Tucci wrote this about the year he filmed Conclave in Italy - see last week's article.)

Listening to Now: Catch-22 by Joseph Helller (Much better than I remember from the time I tried to read it. Listening made the difference.)

 

1000 Books B4K

 

11-15-2024

As a former English teacher, I have been exposed to many studies showing the importance of reading to children. The only one I can remember in connection to this week’s topic is about the relationship between the number of books in one’s home and a child’s grades, or is it IQ? Obviously, I don’t really remember it. At the time I certainly counted the number of books in my home and pondered the relationship between the study and library books that are in and out of a home. Then I probably grabbed a book I’d been counting and settled in to read.

Thankfully, Miss Maria has put together lovely packets of information for parents of truly young patrons as part of the relaunched 1000 Books B4K (before kindergarten). The program encourages reading through the use of coloring sheets each one representing 100 books. In the past, the title of each book was recorded. The relaunched simplifies tracking of the 1000 books thanks to the sheet created by Miss Anna. Each contains a bookshelf with 20 items bordered by 100 flowers. After every book, check off a flower. After every 5, color in an item on the bookshelf randomly run a crayon/marker over the page depending on the child’s artistic vision. Then record the best book read in that 100 and bring to the library.

The child will receive a sticker and a new coloring sheet after every 100 books read. At the end, the library will place a name plate in the child’s favorite book recommending it to others. That’s 10 stickers and the opportunity to influence other people. How many children would turn down that? No reading program such as this would be complete without a book as the final reward.

One of the flyers Miss Maria included in the packet does remember why reading to children is important. It’s not just the reading it’s the interaction with the book and the reader. Looking back at Emma’s youth, I wish I had paused more to ask her questions about the story or the illustrations. As a reader, I didn’t like to disrupt the story’s pace. She would have benefited from more opportunities to absorb the story at a younger age.

We started reading to Emma at bedtime when she was seven weeks old. Admittedly, she didn’t understand any part of them, but it gave her quiet time with her dad on a regular basis. Later those books may have acquired some bite marks. Proof she enjoyed them. As a toddler, her favorite book was a DK Publishing about babies. She was fascinated by the pictures of fellow little ones and their lives.

One of the saddest days of my life was shortly after Emma’s 10^th birthday. We had just finished reading the Harry Potter series together. She had really wanted to read the final book to herself, but pitied mom. When it was finished, she called an end to our nightly reading together.

Reading Now: Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Conclave by Robert Harris

Listening to Now:  A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost