My 4 1/2 year old is perpetually overtired. Her imagation is overflowing & as soon as we send her to bed (despite predictable routine, stories, teeth brushing...), her inner dramatics come out. She's my mini me. It's actually quite amusing (sometimes), if I can seperate myself from the parent who needs a little peace & quiet. Unfortunately tonight I made the mistake of bringing my laptop in to 'join her', putting myself on sleep-watch (sitting in her not-very-comfortable overpriced mall store reading chair, next to her overflowing bookcase). As I was surfing, she came over "to give me a big hug & kiss" (yeah, ok, she was being nosy about what I was doing).
In my quest for recertification & professional development (a different topic entirely), I had come across this http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/digitalcoll/digitalcoll-children.html the library of congress rare book & special collections division's digitized print collection for children's literature - which was up on my browser.
I was drawn to this book in particular, as was E: "Our Old Nursery Rhymes" - a fabulous (and not so politically correct) collection of fairy tales. It's after 8:50 pm & here I am doing a minilesson for my kid (who should be sleeping) on predicting based on picture cues, end rhyme, predictable text, and making connections. All she did is bat her eyelashes at me and ask what it said. She's the one who initiated the connections after she read some of the rhymes to me (with dancing cursor action from mom) & I asked if she could read. Turns out some of these are identical to the nursery rhyme deck that we have in our living room (that I'd forgotten we have).
Looks like I just realized what else to throw in my bag of tricks for our long drive tomorrow... :)
