What a difference a good night's sleep makes. This morning we all felt significantly more jolly. It's been a good day for reading today. We were up early, and, much to C's disgust, had to go to church to collect A's First Communion Certificate without Daddy, or Granny, or Grandpa being there. This was not a popular choice, although A and I quite enjoyed the adventure of being up and about on Sunday, just the three of us. C read his way through the service. His two books of choice this morning were Spider Man: The Amazing Story, from the wonderful Dorling Kindersley Early Reader series, which we borrowed from the library yesterday, and and extremely old school guide to each and every Pokeman, which I bought for 20p at the fayre yesterday. Money well spent.
When we got home I was fully in Grade 1 parenting mode. We made a model from Mathematical Curiosities by Gerald Jenkins. I am not sure either child understood the mathematical theory behind the model, but we had fun with a bit of Pritt-Stick and were left with a pretty snazzy looking pyramid to show for it. This book is very quaint and fun. There is a rack of similarly odd books at one of the National Trust places we regularly visit, and they've always proved good value.
A then helped me to do the maths to reduce a recipe for bread sauce in Rose Prince's The New English Kitchen, a recipe book which is a pleasure to read, and really did make me think about the way we consume, and how we might get back to traditions which are important, and, indeed, tasty.
After an afternoon spent getting fresh air in an adventure playground, we came back for bedtime. A chose Neal Layton's The Story of Things. Both kids love looking at this book in bed, working out which things were invented when. It's very low on text, which is an excellent thing for a non-fiction book for children, in my view. Too many words tends to put everyone off, and the facts simply dont' get absorbed. However, pop-ups, and the odd bit of sparse text will make this a book that children will return to again and again. They are bound to be more interested in the information which is there, where there is a picture of a musical toilet thrown in for good measure.
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