Reading with Little Miss Muffet and Little Bo Peep, January 2016

We have been snowed in for the last few days, and before that we had a good cold spell, so we have had lots of time to cuddle up with good books. Here's what Miss Muffet and Bo Peep enjoyed in January.

Busting Boredom with Books

Little Bo Peep (just turning 4 months) is getting to the age now where she is beginning to desire entertainment in addition to bottles, snuggles, and clean diapers. When she is fussing and nothing else seems to comfort her, it usually works to give her a book to look at. If she's lying on the floor, I will stand up Black and White by Tana Hoban, or the Alphaprints ABC book she got for Christmas and just let her take in the images on the pages. She kicks her legs, coos, and even reaches out to try to knock the book over. It's so nice to see even a small baby beginning to have her own relationship with books.

Singable Picture Books

Little Miss Muffet (age 2 years, 2 months) has suddenly started to demand that all picture books be sung, whether they have a tune or not. Rather than start making up tunes for every book under the sun, we have been borrowing a lot of singable picture books from the library - and revisiting the ones in our own collection - to satisfy this new fascination. Here are some titles we have recently enjoyed:

• The Babies on the Bus by Karen Katz
• The Seals on the Bus by Lenny Hort 
• Row Row Row Your Boat by Iza Trapani 
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star illustrated by Julia Noonan
• Lullaby and Good Night by Julie Downing 
• Old MacDonald Had a Woodshop by Lisa Shulman and Ashley Wolff
• Mockingbird by Allan Ahlberg and Paul Howard
• Mary Wore Her Red Dress and Henry Wore His Green Sneakers by Merle Peek
• Hush Little Baby by Margot Zemach

We borrowed Lullaby and Good Night from the library, but it has become such a special favorite that we had to order a copy of our own. It has beautiful illustrations, and the music for each lullaby is worked into the pictures. It also just happened to have a version of I See the Moon, which is a song we already love from Marylee's 1, 2, 3 Sing with Me! album, so it was an instant hit with Miss Muffet - and with me, too.

Highlights High Five

Last year, we had a subscription to Highlights Hello, and we loved it! I saved all the back issues to share with Little Bo Peep, but now, thanks to Grandma, we have a new subscription to Highlights High Five for the new year. The stories are a bit longer, and there are more of them, and the magazine also includes activities to do at home, as well as more complicated hidden pictures puzzles. Miss Muffet loves to flip through her "manganize" all "by self" and she even tries to follow along with the audio version, though it often moves to the next page before she is ready and she does not turn the page as directed. The hidden pictures are so far too difficult without a lot of help, but the stories and rhymes are just right. I look forward to watching her learn to master the new activities in the coming months!