Dr Seuss

It's Dr Seuss' birthday today so I thought I would do a post about the fantastic author. To be honest I never really cared for Dr Seuss when I was growing up, but now that I have kids it's a totally different story. Dad, on the other hand, has always been a huge fan (even more so when he found out that Theodor Geisel also went to Lincoln College). Nicholas and Daniel agree with their Dad, so Dr Seuss has a prominent place on our bookshelf and our library trips!


Whether you like Dr Seuss or not, his books provide the perfect building blocks for learning to read. His rhyme and rhythm are very catchy and his illustrations are weirdly enticing. Kids really seem to get drawn in by his his zany characters and intoxicating silliness. It has to be good for stimulating their imaginations and creativity. Seuss books are also graded - green, blue and yellow back - so you can build up and read trickier and longer books as the child's reading ability develops. As a result of all this I have grown rather fond of the dear doctor's fantastic far fetched books myself!


I just asked Nicholas which is his favourite Dr Seuss book and he went off on a tangent: "Oh the places you will go - no - Green eggs and ham - wait - McGelligot's Pool - I know - If I ran the circus - oh yes - I wish I had duck feet - it's it's - Yertle the Turtle - actually, mom, I just like them all okay!" I guess that explains it all!


Daniel's favourite at the moment must be the ABC Book. It has played a big role in helping him identify the upper case and lower case of each letter in the alphabet. The letters in the book are nice and big too so he always traces them with his finger. He also likes Mr Brown can Moo and Hop on Pop for obvious reasons!


The official Dr Seuss website, Seussville, is filled with all sorts of fun and games, and characters from Dr Seuss' books. The great thing is I can leave the boys on their own and they are competent enough on the computer now to navigate around themselves!


There are so many blogs out there with great activity ideas for kids, but the one I like best must be Not just cute (dig a bit deeper because she has done a few Dr Seuss posts). I am getting so caught up in all of this I might even be tempted to do a Dr Seuss party sometime. Have a look at the weird and wonderful ideas on Pinterest. I also just stumbled across Oceanhouse Media which lists a whole lot of Dr Seuss apps. I think Dad has his task cut out for this weekend. You've got to love the internet!




I thought I'd finish off with some of our favourite Dr Seuss quotes but then I realised there are actually too many. So I started searching for a website displaying a collection and the best I came up with is good old Google Images. I think if I had to choose only one it would have to be:

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will indeed!
(98 and 3/4 % guarenteed.)
KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
. . .
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So .... get on your way!

I think I'm going to make green eggs and ham
for breakfast tomorrow!

Bookworm

It's World Book Day today, so it's a good excuse to finally publish a post that I've been writing about Nicholas' reading ability for ages now. I didn't want to brag, but I decided that I have the right to because I am so proud of my little boy. At the age of only 5, he is reading fluently and confidently, and far beyond what is expected of him. Best of all, he has a passion for books, and that's exactly what we have always hoped for and tried to encourage. I trust that we'll provide the right stimulation to always encourage him to stay ahead of the pack!

Nicholas started showing signs that he was ready to read ages ago. One day I came across him reading Mr Brown Can Moo Can You? by Dr Seuss to Daniel. Granted, he was only reading the sound words, and he was obviously using the pictures as a clue, but that is how it all starts. I was so impressed, especially when he got to the last page, where there were no pictures as clues, and he managed to read most of the simple little words. This video clip was taken 17 August 2010 when he was 3 and 3/4 years old!

He became fascinated with letter, and subsequently word, flashcards and magnets. Whenever we got into the car we had to play 'I spy'. It wasn't long before we started doing crosswords and playing games like scrabble. He loved every minute of it and always begged for more. Up until then things kind of just happened by accident. I then found some box sets geared towards children learning to read, amongst others the Oxford Reading Tree, which progress at a perfect pace as the child's reading ability develops. Incidentally, the school uses the similar books once the kids have Jolly Phonics under the belt. From there it was no looking back!

By the time he started school he was reading pretty nicely, so he darted into the advanced reading group. Naturally we were as pleased as punch. Things progressed fast and his reading really took off. I'm always amazed how many words he knows by sight - definitely far more than those that they are meant to know by the end of reception and even year 1 and 2 as far as I can tell - the rest he can easily work out with phonics. Here are a couple of certificates he got for the HFW (High Frequency Word) tests at school the other day. They seem rather insignificant because he actually knows hundreds of words, but he is ever so proud of them. The teacher whispered to me that she's going to have to raise the bar for 3 of her students!

I love that he can read most of the kiddie books that we used to read to him to us now. As a result, our bedtime reading routine has had to change. Now we choose one for Nick to read to us, Danny chooses one from the old stash and Nick chooses one of the chapter books. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl and The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton are two of his favourites so far. I enjoy it when he begs for more because you can just see that he absolutely loves it!

Keep it up, Nicholas, I'm so proud of you!

You're my super duper star!

Unbelievable

On Saturday Dad took Danny to Pets at Home to get some supplies for our beautiful gold fish. Gogo bought the fish for Nicholas when Daniel was born and they are still going strong. Unbelievably they often swim upside down (so we frequently fear the worst). It seems like that is just what they like to do after a meal. Similar to humans in a funny sort of way. They have had a lot of names, including being nameless, but Flip and Finn seem to have finally stuck. We love our fish!


Back to the pet shop - it isn't your average pet shop - it's spacious and clean and has a huge selection of animals. The fish section is like an aquarium and the reptile section is like the tropical zoo, and then they've got chickens, bunnies, chinchillas, skinks and lots more. Every weekend they have special event like a dog grooming demonstration. The unbelievable thing is that they were selling shongololos for £25 - TWENTY FIVE POUNDS - being a South African where there are shongolos aplenty I find this hard to believe. I think I should start a shongololo importing business for the boys. Anyone want to be our agent at that end?

Chicken Pox 1

Nicholas has chicken pox! The old wives' tale says 3 days' of spots, 3 days' of blisters and 3 days' of crusting over and then life returns to normal. So far it seems quite accurate. Nick's spots started appearing last Tuesday, at first I thought it was just a mild case, but the spots just kept coming, until Friday when he was at his sickest and itchiest. Then, as if by magic, he hit the turning point and has been getting better and better ever since. Thankfully he has been very good about not not scratching so he doesn't look too bad. It's actually been nice being housebound. I've really enjoyed having Nicholas all to myself again and playing school-school with him. I'll miss him when he goes back to school later this week!

SA2011: Joburg

We got quite used to lovely long holidays in South Africa over the last few years, but this year we could only go for two and a half weeks because of school holidays. We spent one week in Magogong and one week in Wakkerstroom, a couple of days travelling in between, and then the last stint in Joburg. We always like a bit of time in Joburg so that we can meet up with family and friends and visit some of our favourite spots. We could actually do with a whole week there!

The Lion Park

We like going to the Lion Park because it is so easy to get to, just on the outskirts of the city (you can actually see the skyline in the distance of the one photo). It affords us the opportunity to have a wild animal encounter with guaranteed sightings and very little effort on our part. The boys always like feeding the giraffe and checking out the antelope, and it's nice to see lion, cheetah and wild dogs up close too!

The De Munniks

It's hard to imagine how we squeezed so many friends and family into such a short period of time. We had lunch with the Frenches, spent a lovely evening with the Krugers, and Warren and Nicole hosted one of their famous braais giving us the opportunity to see them as well as the De Munniks, Pam and Gareth. I am so sorry I didn't take a photo of their lovely bull dog, Dexter, who the kids absolutely adored. The next day we had a last minute swim with the De Munniks. It was great seeing Nicholas and Dylan and Daniel and Travis playing so nicely together!

Sandton Playground

One day a few years ago we stumbled across an awesome playground, albeit a bit overgrown and run down, somewhere in Sandton. It's at a convenient crossroad so when we have some time to kill in between visits we usually pop in there. The boys impressed us no end as they clambered all over the risky equipment in a courageous fashion!