**Click the bookworm to go to My Very Own Mail.**

I stumbled upon the neatest book this morning while I was browsing on Squidoo.

Have you guys joined Squidoo yet? I love this site - you can check out my first lens here: Kids Love Halloween!
So I was browsing around on Squidoo - different lenses for kids, or for books, or for kids and books, and I stumbled upon what could easily be the My Very Own Mail Mascot Book!

The book is called, “Wow! I’m Reading! Fun Activities to Make Reading Happen” and it provides wonderful - and fun - ideas for teaching little ones to read. It is part of a series and they also have books on science, math, and even arts and crafts! And let me tell you, doing arts and crafts with little ones is one of my very favorite things to do! What a cool series!

And great low price on a used version, too! You’ve gotta love Amazon!

GO READ A BOOK!

**Click the bookworm to go to www.MyVeryOwnMail.com**

Ok, this is good! Check this out! My sweet bookworm son that I wrote about the other day - remember? He brought me a book from school?

He is working on a book report this evening. He is making what we used to call shadow boxes, but, the kids now call ‘diorama’ - ok, I realize that is horribly misspelled! So he is painting trees that he has made out of popcorn and foil (a joint collaboration between Mommy, big brother and himself) and he is at a point where he can’t do any more work on it because he is waiting for the paint to dry. The project is due tomorrow - so he does have to finish it tonight.

I am in the kitchen cleaning and he comes in and gets in my way and the conversation goes sort of like this:

Me: Would you go finish? *exasperated*

Him: I’m waiting for the paint to dry…

Me: Well, go do something productive.

Him: *excitedly* Like read?

Me: Yeah! Perfect - go read!

Him: Oh! Mommy - I can’t read, you’re not supposed to do anything fun until you’re done with homework!

I am telling you that this kid was completely serious! He was not joking, being silly, brown-nosing ‘ol mom - totally serious.

You gotta love that. He’ll be 12 next week. And he still totally digs reading - some of us went through a certain stage during a certain pubescent time when reading just was not at the top of the list, you know?

Although, he could just not be there yet - but, I’m holding out for a good, solid reader all the way through!

He then went on to tell me that a kid at school calls him a ‘geek’ because he brings a book to lunch with him. Apparently, this was said in jest because he was smirking as he told me about it.

And then he asked me, “Did you ever do that, Mommy - take a book with you to lunch when you were in school?”

Uh…uh…I don’t recall that I did, actually.

I did get called a weirdo for brushing my teeth every day after lunch - does that count?

Hee-hee.

What a joy and a blessing, though. I had to stop my cleaning spree to come on here and blog about this because it is just so cool!

GO READ A BOOK!

**Click the bookworm to go to www.MyVeryOwnMail.com**
…childhood book?

I love so many different books, even in so many different genres, but, I think I would definitely have to say my favorite childhood book was:

It is the perfect, childhood-angst safety zone for getting it all out of your system! And then going back to Momma for a big hug and an “I love you”.

You made me mad, and I’m going to roar (my terrible roars) and scream (my terrible screams) and tell the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD (on the island, anyway) how horribly unfair it all is!

Then I feel all better and everything is ok again - even with me and Momma.

Noone has been hurt, nothing’s been broken, and I have had the luxury of processing all of my emotions!

Wow! Do you think every childhood therapist has a copy in their office? Well, maybe they should! HAHAHA!

Another mom I know recently blogged about (even showing us a picture of!) some of her favorite childhood books. Her name is Jamie and I love the title she chose for this post: R is for Reading!

GO READ A BOOK!

has brought me the sweetest book to read! I am speaking about my bookworm #2, my middle son.

He is in the sixth grade, and the children are allowed to not only check out books from the library, but, also from the teacher. He saw a book in his teacher’s room that he thought I would like and he brought it home to me.

The teachers provide these books for the kids, so that they can read them - and he brought it home to me! How wonderfully sweet!

The book in question follows:

Isn’t that the sweetest thing?  My son knows how much I love horses, and he brought this book home to share with me!

GO READ A BOOK!

Well - I had a great conference with my daughter’s teacher - she had very lovely things to say about my little one! And she completely explained the TOPS Reports to me as well as the Accelerated Reader Program - and let me tell you - that program is awesome! I really like it!

They start out the year assessing each child’s reading level - which is really cool to know. My daughter is in the fourth grade and she tested at 5.9 or 5.2 - which would mean either 5th grade, 9th month or 5th grade, 2nd month. We talked about a lot of different numbers - so I got them a little confused, that’s why I am not sure which one - but noone has ever told me exactly where my children’s reading levels are at before - so I thought that was really cool!

I wish I could get my boys tested to see where they would fall.

All in all, it sounds like a great program and she gave me some good ideas for working on comprehension with my daughter at home.

And sometimes getting my kids to do schoolwork, especially extra stuff that the teacher didn’t specifically assign, but, they need to brush up on - can be tough.

But I ran into a blog today that has some great tips for dealing with that - it is Aurelia Williams’ blog, and you can find the post here: Tips to Stop the Homework Battle in Your House.

GO READ A BOOK!

Well, I’m off to the elementary school this morning to talk with my daughter’s teacher.  My daughter seems to be struggling with reading comprehension again - a bit rusty from our complicated and chaotic ‘moving’ summer during which we had no time to do ‘home-school-summer-work’ like we normally do.  

We definitely spent plenty of time reading, but, we never really ‘talked’ about our reading.  

And, as you know, we’ve moved from Texas to Alabama, and they have something new and different to us here called TOPS Report testing on books that they’ve read.  It is part of the Accelerated Reader program, which we didn’t not have in Texas.  And my daughter is having some low scores on them - so the teacher is going to explain the testing to me and give me some pointers on how best to work with her.

This will be my first Alabama teacher conference, and if my daughter’s lovely teacher wasn’t so darn sweet, I might be a little a nervous.  This is, however, my first time to venture up to the school during the school day - so that might be a bit nerve-wracking.  I have normally by now fully integrated myself into the school-helping-moms community, but, I have been so busy at home with My Very Own Mail, that I haven’t had time to do that yet.

So, I will come back and let you know how it went later today - these TOPS Reports could just be the coolest things and I might have to rush home to tell you all about them!

GO READ A BOOK!

Have you ever visited your children’s elementary school during a full moon phase?

Well - if you never believed in the moon affecting our emotions and you visited a school during the full moon, let me tell you that you would be a hardcore believer after that!

Once a month, life at school is a little rough on teachers!  I’ve befriended many teachers over the years of my children’s schooling, and there is no longer a doubt in my mind about the validity of our intense relationship with the moon.

A fellow blogger has discovered a great book on the subject.  Her name is Kuanyin and she is blessed enough to live in Hawaii (on my ‘must see’ list before I go on to the next adventure!) and she writes a wonderful blog called,
Who’s Yo Mama?  The post in which she talks about this very interesting book, ‘Who Built the Moon?’ is called Moon Mysteries - check it out!

GO READ A BOOK!