Abby, Zoë and Enzo

Here are a couple links that will explain where we are and what there is to do here.  Let us know what you think in the comments, or if you want us to check anything out.  We want to visit the colonial section, the most easterly point in all the America's, there is a light house and brand new, opened a month ago, Science Center, also go snorkeling and feeding the fish, just to give you an idea of what is on our agenda.  I brought my under water case for the camera, so hopefully feeding the fish will be spectacular.

Wikipedia Article on João Pessoa

WikiTravel Article on João Pessoa

The kick-off was supposed to be yesterday, but it began raining shortly after we were done swim lessons and so it was postponed.  Luckily today the thunderstroms held off until later in the afternoon.  We first went to the library to return books and pick up some new ones, including the next Jewel fairy book, which we'd put on hold and was waiting on the hold shelf for us.  After picking a few books, including the young reader's edition of "Anne of Green Gables", we went to the café area and had our lunch.  Once we were done eating it was time to head over to Four Tree Island for the kick-off!

The first thing to do was to sign up and get the bags holding their reading charts and other fun things.  The theme this year was an Australian Outback theme with the slogan being "G'day for reading!".  A man asked if the girls would like to get their pictures taken with a (carboard) crocodile head on.  Zoë was all for it and was giggling as she posed for her photo, but Abby opted not to do it.  Everytime we passed by, I asked again but she never did decide to try it out.  Next stop was face painting, where Abby chose to have a butterfly and Zoë chose a flower.  We saw Maren, Miah (beanie), Casandra, and Mathew, whom we know from church, there too.  We went over to the refreshments table and the girls got to frost their own cupcakes.  They got a little cup of frosting, chose a food coloring color and then mixed it up.  There were cupcakes in ice cream cones which they slathered the frosting on.  Zoë had eaten the entire top off of hers before we got a chance to move over to the candy decorating table, so we just decided to leave the candy off.  After the treats were devoured, we went in search for some crafts, the first we found were making 'clapping sticks'.  Each girl got two paint stirring sticks and decorated them to their liking.  Once they were done and I was trying to get the girls to stand in a good spot for a photo, a man from the newspaper, who had been giggling behind me, asked if he could take their picture.  I'm pretty sure it's the same guy that took our photo during the snow storm this past winter. 

At 1:00 we went to wait at the 'platypus races' area for the game to begin.  The way it worked was that two people made a team and raced against another team.  One person from each team was at the start line and the other two people were at another line a little way across the grass.  When the volunteer said 'go', the people at the start had to quickly put on a platypus bill and tail then run down to their teamate and tag them.  Once the teamate was tagged, they had to then get in the 'outfit' their partner had on and race back to the start.  Abby and Zoë were the first to try, racing against Cassandra and Maren... definitely not an evenly matched game.  So, the race volunteers decided to have them try again, this time crawling instead of running, to give the younger kids a little more advantage.  Since all the girls knew each other, they themselves also decided to switch up the teams a little.  Zoë and Cassandra teamed up and Abby and Maren were a team.  Abby and Cassandra were at the start, with Zoë and Maren waiting to be tagged.  Abby had everyone cracking up who was now gathered around watching, because the platypus bill had come down covering her eyes and so she was crawling all over the course, and off the course.  One of the volunteers was calling her and clapping to get her to follow his voice... it was such a funny sight.  Meanwhile Zoë had been tagged and got her gear on and took off sprinting, very focused, until she was reminded that she was supposed to be crawling.  Can you guess whose team won?  After this we checked out the G'Wilickers game tent and then went on a 'walk about' before heading home.

At story time today, we found out that it was the last story time until the fall.  Pretty soon the summer time activities will start up and in June will be the kick-off for the reading program.

Here are the books we chose today: "Cowardly Clyde" by Bill Peet, "The Magic School Bus Sees Stars", "Where's Rusty?" an Usborne book, "Dora's Magic Watering Can" by Lisa Rao, "Just Me and My Mom" by Mercer Mayer, "I wear My Tutu Everywhere!" by Wendy Cheyette Lewison, "Hide-and-Seek Dragons" an Usborne book, "Up, Down, and Around" by Katherine Ayres.  And some Early Reader books: "Hooray for Snail!" by John Stadler, "What I See" by Holly Keller, "The Littles Get Trapped!", "The Class Trip" by Grace Maccarone, "Sunshine, Moonshine" by Jennifer Armstrong, "Pal the Pony" by R.A. Herman, and "Henry and Mudge in the Sparkle Days" by Cynthia Rylant.

We managed to get to the library with enough time to look for more fairy books, unfortunately none of the other pet fairy books were in.  We did get a couple of books though:

The 'Great Illustrated Classics' version of "Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum, and "Boomer's Big Day" by Constance W. McGeorge.

Next Zoë and Abby spotted the checkers game that's set up in the 'sun room' of the children's area.  I tried to explain the rules the best that I could remember, and then just let them play each other.  By the second round, they were just giving each other kings and capturing pieces.  At the end of story time they got to make a bunny craft.

After a bit of a break, and the girls not being able to go yesterday due to poor behavior, story time started back up today. We got there early enough to pick out books and have a snack, and then listened to stories about pigs. There were some pretty funny stories today. At the end everyone got to color in pieces of a pig face, cut them out, paste them together and glue them to a big tongue depressor type stick. Abby and Zoë said that they were going to trick Daddy when they got home and put their pig faces in front of their faces and make Daddy think they'd turned into pigs.

Here are the books we got this week: We didn't find the 'Jewel Fairies' series, but we did see that they have a 'Pet Fairies' series we didn't even know about! We got books 1, 2, and 3; "Katie the Kitten Fairy", "Bella the Bunny Fairy", and "Georgia the Guinea Pig Fairy". We got books 10, and 11 of 'The Magic Tree House' series; "Ghost Town at Sundown", and "Lions at Lunchtime". We got a couple of early readers; "I'm a Caterpillar" by Jean Marzollo, and "Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea" by Cynthia Rylant. We also got "The Berenstain Bears Think of Those in Need" by Stan and Jan Berenstain, "Boomer goes to School" by Constance W. McGeorge, "The Magic School Bus At the Waterworks", and a 'Great Illustrated Classics' book, "Pollyanna" by Eleanor H. Porter.  We got a computer game too, it's called "Math Missions".

Here are the books we got this week:

The last book of the weather fairies series: "Hayley the Rain Fairy", "Papa Jethro" by Deborah Bodin Cohen, "Dozer to the Rescue" by Karl Gude, "How Do You Make a Baby Smile?" by Philemon Sturges, "That's Not How You Play Soccer, Daddy!" by Sherry Shahan, and "Atomic Ace (He's Just My Dad) by Jeff Weigel.  The early readers are: "Dragon Egg" by Mallory Loehr, "Lulu's Lost Shoes" by Paula Blankenship, and "The Well-Mannered Monster" by Marcy Brown.

At the libary today we just got a few books picked out before the snow began and we headed home.  We spent a good deal of time just sitting and looking at books before the girls began picking some to bring home. 

We got books 4, 5, and 6 of the 'Weather Fairies' series; "Goldie the Sunshine Fairy", "Evie the Mist Fairy", and "Storm the Lightning Fairy".  We also got book number 9 of the 'Magic Tree House' series, "Dolphins at Daybreak".  Some other books the girls chose were, "Big pig on a dig" by Phil Roxbee Cox, "Piggybook" by Anthony Browne, and one that Zoë really wanted to get, "Atomic Ace and the Robot Rampage".

Here's the books we picked out this week:

We got the first three books of the 'Weather Fairies' series (yes, the library did have these) "Crystal the snow Fairy", "Abigail the Breeze Fairy", and "Pearl the Cloud Fairy".  We also got books 6, 7, and 8 of the 'Magic Tree House' series: "Afternoon on the Amazon", "Sunset of the Sabertooth", and "Midnight on the Moon".  We got a book that was on display about St. Patrick's Day, "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning" by Eve Bunting.  Then Abby and Zoë picked out a stack of early readers: "Henry and Mudge and the Bedtime Thumps", "Henry and Mudge in the Green Time", "Henry and Mudge and the Tall Tree House", "Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night", and "Henry and Mudge and the Best Day of All" by Cynthia Rylant, "Happy Honey #1 - Happy and Honey", and "Happy Honey #2 - Honey Helps" by Laura Godwin, "The Day the Sheep Showed Up" and "A Bear, and a Boy go to School" by David McPhail, "Poppleton Everyday" by Cynthia Rylant, "Hop, Skip, Run" by Marcia Leonard, and "The Magic School Bus Gets Crabby".

Our first stop after coming out of the story time room was to get more of the books from the 'Rainbow Fairies' series.  We got books 5, 6, and 7: "Sky the Blue Fairy", "Inky the Indigo Fairy", and "Heather the Violet Fairy".  Abby and Zoë also picked out a bunch of early reader books:

"Poppleton and Friends" by Cynthia Rylant, "Minnie and Moo Go Dancing" by Denys Cazet, two Clifford books; "The Big Leaf Pile" and "The Show-and-Tell Surprise", "Here Comes Silent e!" by Anna Jane Hays, "Wake Up, Sun!" by David l. Harrison, "Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs - Uh-Oh!", "Rain", by Marion Dane Bauer, "Driving Buddies" (a 'Cars' movie book), "Five Silly Fishermen" by Roberta Edwards, and the girls were happy to find a Puppy Mudge book, "Puppy Mudge Finds a Friend" by Cynthia Rylant.

Much to Abby and Zoë's dismay, we didn't make it to story time this morning.  Mommy wasn't feeling well and spent most of the morning on the couch.  Abby and Zoë were actually very good about it and just went about playing with each other, every now and then coming to the couch to check on me.  Later in the afternoon I was feeling better and knew that snow was supposed to be coming and we might not get to the library tomorrow, so we went ahead and went to pick out some books.

Zoë and Abby wanted to go right to the chapter books to choose the next few books in both series we're reading right now.  They also picked out plenty of other books, mostly early readers.  Here's the list:

"Please Try to Remember the First of Octember!" by Dr. Suess, "A Fly Went By" by Mike McClintock, "Let's Clean Up!" by Peggy Perry Anderson, "Nina, Nina Ballerina" by Jne O'Connor, "Swim Like a Fish" by Ellen Schecter, "Bathtime for Biscuit" and "Biscuit Goes to School" by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, "Pets to the Rescue: Brave Norman" by Andrew Clements, "Tea Party for Two" by Michelle Poploff, "The Magic School Bus Has a Heart" and "The Magic School Bus and the Missing Tooth", "Ready? Set. Raymond!" by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, "Henry and Mudge: The First Book" by Cynthia Rylant, "Best Friends" by Marcia Leonard and "Max's Dragon Shirt" by Rosemary Wells. We got books 2,3,and 4 of the 'Rainbow Magic' books; "Amber the Orange Fairy", "Sunny the Yellow Fairy", and "Fern the Green Fairy". We're still reading book number 3 of 'The Magic Tree House' series for our bed time reading and we got numbers 4 and 5 today; "Pirates Past Noon" and "Night of the Ninjas". We also got a cd to listen to at rest time called "the Floppy Sleep game". We tried it out and Zoë and Abby really enjoyed it, it was quite relaxing.

Parking at the library when there are story times and things going on at the court or middle school (both just down the street) is almost non-existent.  Luckily we found a place, but it ended up that the story times today were for the younger crowd, I had forgotten that they'd changed up the times.  That was alright though, it gave us plenty of time to read some books and choose new ones to bring home.  We got some suggestions for chapter books from one of the librarians, and also got a bunch of early reader books.  Here's the list:

"Biscuit Wants to Play", and "Biscuit Finds a Friend" by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, "Mouse's Hide-and-Seek Words" A phonics reader by Kathryn Heling, (This is a 'step into reading' level 1) "Puppy Mudge has a Snack", and "Puppy Mudge Loves His Blanket" by Cynthia Rylant, (These two are 'ready-to-read' pre-level 1), and "A Little Princess" (picture book version) by Barbara McClintock.  We got two chapter books as well.  Book #1 in the 'Rainbow Magic' series, "Ruby the Red Fairy" by Daisy Meadows, and book numbers 2 and 3 of the 'Magic Tree House' series, "The Knight at Dawn" and "Mummies in the Morning" by Mary Pope Osborne.

It seems like ages since we've been to the library.  We've been reading lots at home, thankful to have a handful of new books from birthday and Christmas presents.  Abby and Zoë were focused on finding Ms. Mary even before we got into the library.  When they found her they were very excited to say hello right away, but then went on to play with puzzles and find books to read.  A little bit later, as I was getting a book for them, I saw both girls holding hands, leaving the area they were playing in, with a very determined and somewhat mischievous look on their faces.  They were giggling and moving slowly towards the front of the kids section.  I watched them to see what they were up to, then Zoë got sidetracked with the paperback early readers, then Abby joined her and they both picked out a book.  Finally I questioned what they were doing and called them back to me.  They were trying to find Ms. Mary to go talk to her, but Ms. Mary was somewhere putting books away so they went back to their section to read the books they'd just found.  A little later Ms. Mary was putting books away in the section Abby and Zoë were in and Abby asked Mary if she had any kids.  She replied that she didn't, but looked to me and said she was expecting one.  I told her I had wondered but didn't want to say anything in case she wasn't.  Abby didn't get it then, but when Mary went to a different section I told the girls that Ms. Mary was pregnant and they were quite excited about their favorite librarian (tied only with Ms. Susan maybe) being 'preg-a-nant'.

When we left the library I saw that the sky turned dark and talked to Abby and Zoë about the possibility of rain coming soon.  Sure enough, as we were getting into the car, the drops began to slowly fall and as soon as I got in the car and got it started, the skies opened up and it got super windy.  By the time we got home, the wind was so strong.  I ran up to put our stuff in the house and opened an umbrella to bring the girls inside - it was 55 degrees today so we didn't have coats and hats and all of that, just sweaters over their shirts.  As I was getting Abby out of the car, I heard a lot of noise coming from somewhere that sounded like someone's wind chimes had gone crazy.  When I got Abby up to the door, Chris said that a window had just blown off of our house so I got Zoë in the house and went to check things out.  Our new next door neighbor Paul was at his front door assesing things too.  Turns out that the window was actually from the house next to him, the same house that two Christmas trees blowing down the street belonged to... the wind was really strong.  The glass was all over one lane of the road so Paul and I swept it up.  Man were we thankful it didn't come off of our house.

Here are the books we got this week:

"It's the Bear!", "Some Dogs Do", and "Tall" by Jez Alborough, "Zeke Pippin" by William Steig, "What's Under My Bed?" by James Stevenson, "Where's Waldo the Wonder Book", and "Where's Waldo the Fantastic Journey" by Martin Handford and "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Micheal Rosen.  Our Short Novel this week is "The Stories Julian Tells" by Ann Cameron.  The full length novel we wanted to get was checked out.

Usually we get our big list of books at the library the day before story time, since it can take a while.  However, with all of our errands we had to run yesterday we didn't get to it and had to combine the two today.  We made it to the library just as Ms. Mary was dinging the triangle to announce the start of story time.  As always, the girls really enjoyed story time, and the mitten craft they got to do afterwards.  Then it was time to look for our books.  Abby and Zoë get set up at a table in the middle of the sections where I get most of our books from, with puzzles and a couple of books, that way I can see them while I get everything on our list.  One of the Dad's that comes to story time with his daughter, was there reading to his daughter and Abby and Zoë decided that they wanted to sit and listen as well.

Towards the end of the book list, Abby and Zoë got pretty cranky and started to not behave so well, so we hat to put back some extra books that we were going to look through, which upset Abby quite a bit.  We did get some books not on the list before melt downs ensued though.  Here's our list this week: "Father Bear Comes Home" bye Else Holmelund Minarik, "Miss nelson is Missing!" by harry Allard, "If I Ran the Zoo" by Dr. Suess (mangaged to get the correct one this week), "Max Cleans Up" by Rosemary Wells, "No More Water in the Tub!" by Tedd Arnold, "The Napping House" by Audrey Wood, "The Mysterious Tadpole" by Steven Kellogg, "Max" by Bob Graham, "The Little House" by Virginia Lee Burton ( I liked this one growing up and I can't wait to read it again with Zoë and Abby), "Blueberries for Sal" and "Make Way for Ducklings" by Robert McCloskey.  Not on the list were, "Magic School Bus Lost in the Snow", "Dogku" by Andrew Clements, "Table, Chair, Bear, A Book in many languages" by Jane Feder, "Count Your Way Through Brazil" by Jim Haskins and Kathleen Benson, and "Brazil: Enchantment of the World".

After an early dinner, I took Zoë and Abby to the library.  The first thing we did after returning our books was to read the only book we haven't read for the ladybug award.  After this Abby and Zoë each got their ladybug sticker and put it on the big board, on the book they wanted to vote for.  Abby chose "Library Lion" and Zoë chose "I'm Not Afraid of Dogs"  Next Abby and Zoë handed in their cards to get their gift of reading books.  There were some really good ones to choose from.  Abby ended up choosing "I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean" by Kevin Sherry and Zoë chose "Daddy's Lullaby" by Tony Bradman with really nice illustrations by Jason Cockcroft.

Next Abby and Zoë read books and did puzzles while I got our books for the week: "Little Bear" by Else Holmelund Minarik, "Curious George in the Snow" and "Curious George's Dream" by Margret and H.A. Rey, "Sweet Dreams Maisy" and "Maisy Goes Camping" by Lucy Cousins, "The Cut-Ups" by James Marshall, "Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo" by William Joyce, "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" by Kevin Henkes, "The Hunter" by Paul Geraghty, "The House on 88th Street" by Bernard Waber, "Mailing May" by Michael O. Tunnel, and "Horton Hears a Who" by Dr. Suess. ( I had actually intended to grab "If I ran the Zoo", which was next to it and also orange, but any Dr. Suess will do) For our short novel we got the sequel to last weeks book, "Elmer and the Dragon" by Ruth Stiles Gannett.  As for books not on the list, I found "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay up Late" by Mo Willems and got it because Abby and Zoë really like "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus", which we have at home".  Zoë chose "Dora's Big Dig" and we also got "Once Upon a Princess".

Back at home, after snack and a shower, Daddy read one of the new books "Daddy's Lullaby" for the extra story after Bible and prayers.  Once lights were out, Abby and Zoë went right to sleep.

We went to the library before Thanksgiving, but with everything surrounding the holiday, we didn't get a whole lot of time to read many of the books we'd chosen.  We got a lot of books from our list this week, as well as some that weren't on it.  Here's our list: "Chato's Kitchen" and "Chato and the Party Animals" by Gary Soto, "A Pocket for Corduroy" by Don Freeman, "Santa's Book of Names" and its sequel "Edward and the Pirates" by David McPhail, "Let's Go Froggy" and "Froggy Plays Soccer" by Jonathan London, "Chewy Louie" by Howie Schneider, "Deep in the Forest" and "Do Not Open" by Brinton Turkle, "Frederick" by Leo Lionni, and "The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter.  The short novel from our list this week is "My Father's Dragon" by Ruth Stiles Gannett.  Our full length novel is "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" by Beverly Cleary.  We got three not from our list as well.  One of them, someone had told Grandma Cindy about and she recommended it to us, and luckily our library had it, it's called "Tikvah Means Hope" by Patricia Polacco.  The others Abby and Zoë picked out, "Don't Take Your Snake for a Stroll" by Karin Ireland (illustrated by David Catrow, whom we like) and "Chloë's Birthday" by Giselle Potter. (Chosen pretty much because she had an umlaut over her 'e' like Zoë.  We've gotten through a handful of them, but still have some to go before we choose our next bunch later in the week.

We got to the library today instead of at the beginning of the week.  We actually went after dinner, and ended up getting home at bed time.  We went to the little area set up for the ladybug award, and read two more of the books.  The books from my list that we got today are: "A Chair for my Mother" by Vera B. Williams, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" by Judi Barrett, and our short novel is "Dinosaurs Before Dark" by Mary Pope Osborne, which is the first in a series.  We're towards the end of "The Courage of Sarah Noble", which we checked out last week.  We're also nearing the end of "Charlotte's Web".  Abby and Zoë found a bunch of books they wanted, one hardcover, "Princess Aasta" by Stina Langlo Ordal, and the rest in the paperkback area, "Dora's Chilly Day", "Dance to the Rescue" (another Dora book), "Dora's Thanksgiving", "The Magic School Bus Gets Baked in a Cake", and "The Magic School Bus In the Arctic".  I also checked out "The Polar Express" by Chris Van Allsburg.  I'm excited to read this one with the girls, I just love the illustrations.

When we got towards the children's area of the library, we noticed a display with books for the ladybug award nominees.  Only six of the 10 were on display (one of the librarians said that the others were probably being read somewhere in the library) so we sat down on the provided couch and read them all.  We're hoping to be able to read the others next time we go, and then be able to vote!

The books we got for this week are: "All Join in" by Quentin Blake, "Ask Mr. Bear" by Marjorie Flack, "Aunt Minnie McGranahan" by Mary Skillings Prigger, and our short novel this week is, "The Courage of Sarah Noble" by Alice Dalgliesh.  We're still reading "Charlotte's Web" nightly for our longer novel.  Abby and Zoë each chose a book to bring home as well, "Waggle" by Sarah McMenemy and "Zoom City" by Thacher Hurd.

One of the books that I'm reading right now, "The Read-Aloud Hand Book" by jim Trelease has an extensive section titled 'Treasury of Read-Alouds'  I picked some from the picture books marked for the girls' age group, as well as two from the short novels (one being in the Junie B. Jones series, which we're already reading and the other being " 'E' is for Elisa" by Johanna Hurwitz.)  We also got one from the 'Full Length Novels' category; "Charlotte's Web".  I wanted to get "Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young", but didn't today.  I plan to go back and get it in a couple of days.  The two short chapter books we read throughout the day, and have been reading them at meal times when I'm done but the girls are still eating.  Charlotte's Web we just read one chapter from tonight at bed time and I think we'll keep this one as our bed time "extra story" until it's done.  I had planned to just do one chapter at a time, but after I finished the first chapter tonight, Abby and Zoë begged for me to read another.  We had already read tonight's Bible story and done all of the other night time routine stuff, but I had to decline.  Hopefully we'll be able to finish our night time stuff a little sooner so that I can oblige their wanting me to read-aloud for longer periods.

The "Read-Aloud Hand Book" gives a lot of research and reason for more read-aloud time and doesn't really promote "formal teaching" of reading before Kindergarten, but did recommend a book titled "Teach a Child to Read with Children's Books" by Mark B. Thogmartin, which I picked up and am excited to begin reading.  We do already read a lot together in our house, but I'm figuring out which books are better suited for read-aloud time and planning to have a lot more of it.  I've also implemented a "quiet reading time" after we finish dinner.  Everyone picks a book and a spot to sit by themselves and reads quietly for 10 minutes.

Here are a few of the books I'm reading right now.... besides the Spanish and the "mommy novels".

"The Myth of the First Three Years" ( A new understanding of early brain development and lifelong learning) by John T. Bruer, Ph.D.  I'm about 30 pages into this and it's very intriguing.

"Entwined Lives" (Twins and what they tell us about human behavior) by Nancy L. Segal, Ph.D.  I'm about 20 pages into this one and it's so interesting and compelling.  I really read both of these books every little chance I get during the day and can't wait to see what else they have to say.

"Your Three Year Old" (Friend or Enemy?) by Louise Bates Ames, Ph.D. and Frances L. Ilg, M.D.
I haven't actually started this short book yet, but from flipping through it is seems like it may be kind of a review of things I learned in my ECE classes in college.