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

In November, Bo Peep turned 14 months and Miss Muffet turned three. Here's how reading has impacted their lives this month.

• On November 2, I began presenting a weekly public story time at a local church on Wednesday mornings. To my surprise, despite the fact that I am doing a lot of the same things in story time that I typically do at home, both of my girls seem to be responding more strongly to the story time performances than to my random occasions of singing and reading at home. Specifically, Miss Muffet has begun singing the ABCs, and Bo Peep randomly sings "Up above the world so high" from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. My hypothesis is that the repeated exposure to the same songs in the same exact environment at the same exact time each week is reinforcing their memorization. But in any case, it's nice to see the impact of my own story time firsthand; usually, I don't know about it at all unless a parent tells me. 
• Bo Peep, though much more of a baby than her sister was at this age, is beginning to develop the sassiness of toddlerhood. This includes an attitude of complete opposition to having books read aloud to her. She is happy to hand me a book, and label it for me, but if I open the book and begin to read, she grabs it away and flips to the end. This means that I either have to read to her when she is in the playpen and there is a barrier between us, or I have to recite rhymes and poems instead. I don't think she really opposes hearing language; instead, I think she is just enamored of turning pages right now. 
• We have been taking a lot of weekend day trips, and we always play audiobooks in the car. Because my husband and I both read children's books for our own pleasure, we recently played Pinky Pye, and we're now several chapters into Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. To our surprise (and delight), Miss Muffet has been listening along with us, and unprompted, she happily discusses the characters in both books and offers incomplete, but highly accurate plot summaries. I wouldn't necessarily want to sit down and read a chapter book to her at this age, because there will be lots of time for those later, and there are many great books for her age group, but I do like seeing this blossoming of her listening comprehension skills. 
• Miss Muffet received three new books for her birthday. From Grandma, she got Poppleton in Winter, which includes a chapter about Poppleton's birthday that we thoroughly enjoyed. And we gave her Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, illustrated by Susan Jeffers and The Importance of Being Three by Lindsay Ward. (That second one was a free review copy. I would not have bought it, as the text is awkward. I do like the pictures, though.) 
• Finally, we have begun reading through our stash of Christmas books, and we're also reading lots of Bible stories as we begin adding ornaments to our Jesse Tree. Details about the books we're reading during the Advent and Christmas seasons will be featured in upcoming weekly round-ups!