Parsley Rabbits Book About Books

Children love to write their own stories, and its a great way to get their imaginations flowing. 

So when I found this book on our trip to the library, I was very excited to do a little book review on it. 

Story Summary:

• As Parsley Rabbit takes the reader on a little trip through the book, he tells "You" the reader what each part of the book is for and how it is important to the story. 
• Parsley also explains why books are so wonderful and how you can use them in different ways, how you can share them, where you can read them, and even how there are different types of books for different purposes.
• The Author & Illustrator have done this really well. . .  not using too much text, but using the illustrations to really get the main teaching points across!

Likes and Loves:

• Like that Parsley engages the reader throughout the story by telling them to do things and asking them questions.
• Love the illustrations! The are so endearing and cute!

Teaching Moments:

• Little did I know that this book would come in very handy in helping me to break down the various elements of a book, to my niece Anika, when she wanted to write her own story. After reading this, I was able to remember the key points that she should incorporate into her story. Unfortunately, I didn't have the book with me at the time. Otherwise we would have been able to go through each little element with her and decide how she wanted to make it her own! She ended up writing a very cute little story about "The Fancy Little Mouse" who loved to get dressed up in beautiful things. 
• I LOVE HOW CHILDREN THINK! We have to make sure we capture it! 

Love Letters to Ashton-Paul

I love keeping journals and photo albums but I always wonder whether the way I am keeping them is interesting enough for the person who may end up reading it, or looking at it. So I'm always looking for new and exciting ideas.... and I just got this idea from a friend on how to keep a journal for Ashton. Its called a "Love Letters" journal.

The idea behind it is everyone that is close to Ashton writes letters to him telling him all the things that they love about him. I write in it the most... because I am obsessed with him!!! But other people like his grandparents, aunties and uncles, and close friends all write in it too. Then every time someone writes in it, I add a photo to go along with the entry.

I love this idea because it gives a really nice well rounded view of who Ashton is to all the important people in his life. And as we all know... a child can not be told too much how much they are loved!

The cute part of this, and why I wanted to add it to my blog, is that while I was writing about Ashton and how much I love his dance skills the other day, he came up to me and wanted to write in his journal. So I gave him the pen and let him go for it! I told him this was his very first journal entry! He scribbled away!

When I asked Ashton what he was writing about, he promptly pointed to his picture and sung "row, row, row, boat" So I transcribed for him and continue to add how a bit more at the bottom of how much he loves to sing and that this is one of his favourite songs.

When I told him I was taking a photo to go in his journal he said, "CHEESE". He's so well trained and I LOVE HIM!