Tag: books (Page 2 of 2)

A Throwback To Reading In The Car

November 17, 2010 / Ana / 2 Comments

I saw something today while driving that I haven’t seen in a while…kids reading books in the backseat of a car. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. So many cars have dvd players in the backseat now that it’s become the normal activity for road trips.

Our little ones are in the early stages of learning to read, but we’ve adopted this in our car as well, even for short trips. We’ve been checking out read-along books from the library, and the girls really seem to enjoy them. Our oldest understands the concept of turning the pages of the book when prompted by the CD and following along looking at the pictures, while the little one just enjoys listening to the stories.

If your kids are fans of the Disney movies, they will especially enjoy the Disney read-along books because they include audio clips of the memorable voices of the characters from the movies.

Stuff You Should See– May 24th through June 29th

June 29, 2010 / Scott / 0 Comments

Understanding Your Motivation – I stay in all 6 states at all times.

FamilyShield is a No-Setup Adult Content Blocker for Your Router –

Best Place to Set Up Shop Online? –

Greener Than You — Entrepreneurial Foraging – This is nothing new. Broke college students have been foraging in bars for half drunk bottles and in the student ghettos for morning-after "yard beers" for decades.

Banksimple – Long overdue, and supposed to be launching in 2010. You can sign up for an invite right now. Loooooong overdue.

The Breaking Point for Children in Sports – The middle ground between letting kids live a sedentary lifestyle and pushing them to the point of injury and psychological distress is pretty wide. I can see where parents at both extremes would point to the opposite extreme for justification, but it's only a justification.

Soluto – This looks like a promising solution to help you diagnose and end PC problems. I'm signed up for the beta, hope to get my account soon, and will let you know!

Mark Twain autobiography to be published in November – Can't get enough. This is one I'll be looking forward to.

Delicious Link Dump– December 28th through December 29th

December 29, 2009 / Scott / 0 Comments

The 30 Freakiest Commercials of 2009 – I love commercials, and not just because they make LOST free for me to watch.

Star Wars/A-Team intro mashup – Seriously? It took us until late 2009 for someone to make this happen? Where is your creativity people?

E-Books Beat Regular Books – December 25, 2009 is the day we turned the corner in publishing. Publishers probably thought it would never happen. If only there’s been some sort of warning…maybe if it had happened in other industries (music, movies, newspapers) they could have been better prepared.

Into the Wild – I read it over the weekend. I haven’t seen a movie for…ever, and the guy who was telling me about the movie gave me the book as a gift. I can’t really say that I like Christopher McCandless as portrayed in the book, but I think that was done on purpose. I can relate to him in some ways though. We’re pretty much the same age, and I know a lot of guys who have some of the same character traits as him. I think it was pretty common for young men from our generation to be a little angry about not having much to be angry about. But I think if this guy had played rugby he’d still be alive today. If you play(ed) rugby, you probably understand why. If you don’t, it’s not something I can really explain to you.

The Sexiest Magazine Covers of 2009 – I wasn’t aware that any magazines were still being printed. Thankfully, there are web sites out there to filter through them and find the things I need.

Happiest States Revealed by New Research – Climbing the ranks in best cities to live in and happiest states to live in as well. Soon, we’ll reach residential nirvana. As soon as we have a house.

Thank you, Janet. – She should get dressed up in a flight suit and have her photo taken in front of a banner reading “The system worked” on an aircraft carrier. Now, watch this drive.

The Mine-o-saur!

December 28, 2009 / Scott / 2 Comments

It’s a good thing we love The Mine-o-saur so much, because Chick Pea absolutely adores it! For the last couple of weeks this has been a nightly read for her. We’ve been reading it to her once or twice ourselves, then she gives it a shot. Sure, she’s only reciting what she can remember of the words, but it’s so fun to see her slide her finger across the page as we’ve modeled for her. She’s definitely aware that the words on the page are what we are speaking, and she turns the pages at the appropriate times. She also enjoys naming all the letters in the words and reciting their sounds. We’re one step away from putting the sounds together!

The story may be a little advanced for some toddlers, and we’re not sure that she’s picked up on the small nuances of the story, but we go a little further than the text of the book to explain to her that the other dinosaurs are sad when the Mine-o-saur screams “MINE MINE MINE” and they don’t want to play with him. “Que feo, Mami!”

We’ve been applying the book to daily life when her selfish side comes out–“Do you want to be a Mine-o-saur, or a Share-o-saur?” So what if the book never mentions a “Share-o-saur”? 🙂

Some other fun things we do with this book is practice counting objects–cars, balls, green creatures, purple creatures, etc. The last page of the book shows 11 or 12 dinosaurs huddled together. We make it a point to let her count all the eyeballs with each reading, and since she’s still having trouble with the numbers past 14, it gives us a chance to model that as well.

Overall, one of the favorite books in our family library!

More on Running Barefoot

September 6, 2009 / Scott / 0 Comments

I’ve read a lot of stuff about the benefits of barefoot running. I went for my first barefoot run of any real distance (3m) yesterday on the beach. It was definitely more work on the calves, but I’m not sure if that was from being barefoot or from the sand, which I’m not used to running in. One thing that’s really nice about beach running (at least here) are the multiple parks spaced out that allow you to stop for water and a cool shower.

I’m still debating the Nike Free and also the Vibram FiveFingers. I’m going to give it a few more chances completely bare, but the sand is rough on the toes.

Dropping Science Like Galileo Dropped The Orange

August 11, 2009 / Scott / 0 Comments

I have a few friends that are expecting babies soon. Well, their wives are…my friends just look like they are expecting babies soon.

I was reminded of this really cool gift a friend gave me. This book basically gives you an idea about what goes on in the human brain as it develops and what to expect behavior-wise based on what’s going on physiologically.

Oh wait…first let me tell you how you should parent your kids. It basically goes like this…

You should parent your kids the way you see fit–don’t pay attention to unsolicited advice from other people.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, if you are like me and didn’t don’t know anything about babies, you may find this book interesting. Good gift for expecting parents too, especially if they lean more towards an AP philosophy.

A Book That Made Me Think

June 29, 2009 / Scott / 1 Comment

It’s been highly recommended by so many people, so I finally broke down and read Outliers: The Story of Success over the weekend. I walked away with one burning question…

Why does everyone else get all the breaks while nothing good ever happens for me?

Heh…just kidding.

It is encouraging to know that I’m good at math despite having to translate my native language to numbers for calculating things in my head without being angered to the point of violence due to my honor society heritage. 😛

Good book. Recommend it.

Celebrate The Freedom To Read What We Want

September 29, 2008 / Ana / 1 Comment

It’s that time of year again…the time to celebrate Banned Book Week. Held every year on the last week of September, BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or to create books that may sometimes be viewed unorthodox or controversial by some. Their goal is to promote intellectual freedom.

I remember one year in Florida there was a lot of buzz about a certain book that was being banned in all schools county by county. Guess what happened? EVERYONE wanted to read it…and just about everyone did. It’s still one of my favorites! It’s funny how banning books has that effect, no?

So go check out what it’s all about and also to see what titles are creating buzz this year. Enjoy your freedom!

The Latin Baby Book Club Is Here!

August 12, 2008 / Ana / 0 Comments

Thanks to The Hen over at Bilingual in the Boonies for the heads up on the launching of the new site Latin Baby Book Club.

I’m really excited about this new resource because it allows parents to find new books and music in Spanish for their kids. This site will serve as a great place to learn about latin children’s literature and culture for anyone interested in sharing a new language with their kids. As a bilingual homeschooling mom that’s trying to raise a bilingual family, I can’t begin tell you how helpful this will be! Okay, maybe I’ll try.

I’m always looking for new Spanish books and songs to read and sing with Chick Pea, but I’m so limited on local selection that I have to focus most of my efforts online. Then there’s the problem of time…I just don’t have enough of it to sift through countless sites to find quality bilingual literature and information to use at home. Enter The Latin Baby Book Club!

These wonderful ladies do all of the work for me! They feature great book reviews, author interviews, songs, tips for early readers, bilingual mom tales, and more. Be sure to check them out!

Book Review — Make Van Gogh’s Bed

July 16, 2008 / Ana / 2 Comments

Touch Classic Art

Chick Pea and I took a trip to our local art museum yesterday (we love free admission on Tuesdays) and I found this great touch book of Impressionist art by Julie Appel and Amy Guglielmo. It features classic paintings with textures for kids to touch and feel as they explore the pages. What a wonderful way to expose your child to art and reading at the same time! Of course, with paintings by Van Gogh, Renoit, Monet, and others, this book is visually stimulating for children and adults alike. But it goes further by including the touch sensory as well, allowing your child to actually “feel” a part of each of the paintings.

The featured paintings also tell the story of a day at the beach, starting with Van Gogh’s Bedroom at Arles and ending with his Starry Night. Each painting is accompanied by a short poem that describes the painting and tells a part of the story. The ArtiFacts section (clever) at the end of the book also features more information on each painting featured in the book for parents. If Impressionism isn’t your thing, there are also three other books in the Touch the Art series–Brush Mona Lisa’s Hair, Feed Matisse’s Fish, and Pop Warhol’s Top.

We are lucky to have an excellent used book store in our town, so we seldom buy new books or pay full price, but these will be hard to find used, and they were so nice I could not pass them up.

Gettin’ After It!