Mentor Text Suggestion: Jabari Jumps

THIS IS AN AWESOME BOOK!

I found this book, Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall, on First Book Market Place. (If you don't know about First Book, go explore their website. They offer discounted books for teachers in Title 1 schools. It is amazing and I always load up - as an instructional coach, I am ALWAYS lending books to teachers for various needs so my classroom library has come in handy.)

Jabari Jumps is about a boy who wants to jump from the high diving board. He is excited but then extremely frightened. This book is all about facing your fears, building up the courage to try something new, and ultimately discovering that you can do it!

Check out a few excerpts and then GO BUY IT for your classroom or home library to encourage your littles to  try new things because they just might like it!

Benefits of PUZZLES

Why incorporate the use of puzzles into your child or students' day?

There are plenty of benefits!

- mental exercise

- visual-spatial reasoning

- attention to detail

- improve memory

- increase your IQ

- improve problem-solving skills

- better collaboration and teamwork

- increased productivity

...and the list goes on!

Currently, my kiddos at ages 2 and 9 months, use wooden puzzles almost every day. They love them! My 2 year old has also graduated to 70-100 piece puzzles. Our favorites are the Mudpuppy brand of puzzle. She has Mudpuppy puzzles about the USA (She has learned a lot of states this way), animals in the African Savannah, woodland animals, rainforest animals, and more. I highly recommend these puzzles. They are beautiful, engaging, and an excellent learning resource. They come with information sheets on the animals.

So, go grab some puzzles on Amazon or a local yard sale! They're great for purposeful play!

Learning Our Numbers - Homemade versus store bought

I just need to put this out there - I am cheap.

I prefer to make my own...everything. We made baby food, games, toys, etc. But there are some things that kids prefer...not homemade.

So, I used popsicle sticks to write the numbers from 1-10 on the bottom. I then lined them up in order, taped them together, and wrote VIOLET across all of them so when the numbers are in the right order, Violet's name is spelled out correctly. She knows her name so I thought this would be a good check for her.

Turns out, popsicle sticks, plain jane bland manila popsicle sticks with some Sharpie on them, are not as cool or engaging as the brightly colored popsicle sticks from Really Good Stuff, which teach the same concept.

Maybe your kids will go for the popsicle sticks. Mine did not. Luckily, I shop clearance and I bought the Really Good Stuff version for like $3. I pulled out the set that counts from 0-10, but I also have sets that spell out the number words, for when Violet is ready for them. All of the sets are color coded on the back, so if we pull out all of the sticks with yellow on the back, they will teach counting 0-10, the purple sticks spell out THREE, and so on.

They're a steal. 

Honestly, shop the Really Good Stuff clearance or outlet shop for your classroom and your kiddos at home. There is SO MUCH. I never pay full price - I just wait for the big sales!

IKEA Spice Racks Hack - Make your own BOOKSHELVES!

Can you ever have enough bookshelves? Nope. The answer is NOPE.

We have bookcases, shelves, boxes, baskets, and bins or books in every room of the house. Also stacks of books, but that's not as cool.

Anyway, I bought these $4.99 IKEA spice racks when Violet was a baby. YEARS ago. She's almost 3 now. I painted them, and then we just never got around to hanging them. Over the weekend, I asked my husband to hang them and it took about an hour. He had some screw issues. Just basically searching for the right size. Anyway, once it was finished, VOILA! We had a beautiful display shelf!

I really just wanted a place Violet could see the covers of her books in her bedroom. A place we could change up the books for themes or holidays. She has regular bookshelves in her room, along with, NO JOKE, a WALL of books in her bed. She probably has 50 books piled up behind her pillows in her bed. Nice and neat stacks. Always ready to wake up, reach behind her, and start reading. How can I argue with that? And she's still short enough that she has plenty of room in bed! :)

So, now we are those people who did an IKEA hack and it worked!

And it looks beautiful!

For real, I looked for these type of shelves online and they were a little pricy. I was NOT willing to pay.

My only concern hanging them like this was creating a literal ladder on the wall that Violet might climb. It turns out that she never thought that once. She was so into changing up which books would be displayed first.

But my 9 month old, Braxton? Oh, he's the one I might have to watch.

Happy hacking!