Eloise

We’re back up on the high end of our library book allowance these last two weeks. With our new effort to be “done by Disney” I’ve got a load of books to cover with Jack. Also, the kids have accompanied me to the library the past several weeks so they have picked out books in addition to my weekly evening run.

This list of “topics left to cover” for school makes me laugh: synonym, antonym, homonym, changing to past tense, proper comma use in addresses and dates, quotation marks, poem memorization, oral report, pictorial and bar graph, commutative property of x, variables, amendment, executive, legislative, judicial, civil war, immigration, civil rights, renaissance, story mapping, seasons, cell theory, and the food pyramid. Luckily, curriculum is cyclic, and in second grade, topics call only for a brief overview. I know with the majority of the topics above, it will be only a brief discussion and a few library books read alone or together. I also have ideas of a kids’ summer book club floating around in my head, but I haven’t fleshed that out yet.

One of the books Lena chose was Eloise, by Kay Thompson. I’m pretty certain she chose this last year at some point, but I don’t remember reading it full on to her. I think I skimmed it over when I read it to her and because of the length, snuck it back into the “return” pile for something shorter and more concrete. But I must have forgotten this because when I picked it up to read to both kids last night, I plowed through. What a delightful surprise I had as I read about “little miss lives at the plaza”. It was sassy and funny and perfectly written for a newly minted 5 year old and her older brother. I highly recommend this read at the end of a long week, all snuggled up on the couch, full of cake and goodies and smelling like outside.

Here’s what I can do: Chew gum, Write, Spell, Stand on my head for the longest amount of time, Stand on my toes, Get dizzy and fall down, Make a terrible face, And here’s the thing of it, Most of the time I’m on the telephone. These are Lena’s learning objectives for the day! If only Jack was so lucky!!