Sep 27, 2008

I LOVE BOOKS!!!


I was just so excited about a treasure of a blessing I received this morning. Books are in the top 3 of my passions in life! I absolutely love books. Tommy, being the book lover he is as well, has joined forces with me to instill a love and hopefully a passion in our kids for books. Just recently we have decided on a distinctive approach for teaching our children at home. It is called the Classical Education. In the early years, the main focus is literature (great children's literature....the classics) along with learning facts. Anyway we are excited about this approach. So my main focus during our school time has been to teach Wil to read because in the classical approach they need to be fluently reading by the first grade. I truly believe if you are a good reader then you will automatically be a good learner. Remember when Michael talked about the giant in our lives and what is it. My competition many times is them wanting to watch t.v. rather than read. I have tried my best to be diligent in weaning them from it..not completely. I like Handy Manny as much as my kids. Anyway it has been a rewarding experience to watch him on this learning to read journey. He is doing fabulous and feeling very grown up. The best thing I can do for Wil (and Mags and Trey) is to read to them of course. My quest lately has been to find books that are on the Children's literature list. Although I am grateful for our library, I want to build a library of my own which brings me to my treasure . Marinda, my sister in law, brought over about 4 boxes of books several weeks ago. I had forgotten about them because I had put them away. You know how that goes....out of sight, out of mind. This morning I was looking for something for us to do and those books popped to my mind. We got them down and my kids were giddy as they opened the books feeling as though it were Christmas [see above picture]. This led me to believe that maybe I should have waited till Christmas and just let them open these boxes of Sissy's [Sissy is what they call Marinda]. I opened the books and found several of the books I had in mind to buy the kids....ones that were actually on the Children's Literature list. God has done this countless times lately. He has dropped these sort of blessings in my lap unexpectedly. I just found it odd that I had not opened these boxes sooner but rather just when we needed them. I suppose that is why we call Him omniscient [all-knowing]. Oh and we also found the cutest artwork from when Micah and Maddie were little. It would have brought a tear to Marinda I'm sure. Time flies. Our kids grow up so fast and I pray that I will make the most of my time with them. Hopefully reading with them will be something they cherish as they grow up. I know it will be for me.

1 comment:

Amanda said...

I get so excited about books. At work, I get excited everytime I walk into a book store. I especially love kids books. It's funny you mention the classical approach, that's what I have been leaning toward with our kids. You'll have to share your ideas with me.

The stomach bug finally caught up with me so we won't be at church today. I'm better today, just really weak. I'm just praying no one else in the house gets it.