How many of the board books in your house have you memorized? Half of them? All of them?
I think I have all our board books memorized. In fact, I even have the same tone and rhythm for certain books so that they sound funny to me when I hear my husband read in his own way. Sad but true.
An easy remedy to Crazy-lady-memorizes-board-books-itis is to get all new books. A more reasonable solution is finding a great (preschooler) magazine to come once a month and bring new stories into your world.
High Five Magazine is the little sister magazine of Highlights from when we were kids (or maybe it’s the grandchild… since Highlights is 60 this year!). About a week before I was given a High Five subscription (via Parent Bloggers Network), we got a little sampler copy in the mail.
The sampler included four sets of hidden pictures with varying degrees of difficulty. I had a blast trying to find the paintbrush in the secret location and — just like I try my best not to assemble Holden’s puzzles for him — I tried to be encouraging while not giving all the answers away. He liked finding the pictures and he really liked circling them with a pencil (”Big boys can use pencils, Milo can’t use this pencil”).
When we got the full magazine, it had other puzzles and short stories (including a regular feature in Spanish with phonetic pronunciation). Holden really liked going through the activities, poems, and looking at the craft projects.
His favorite pages, by far, are all about the pictures. For example, we must have read through a 2-page story about a construction site about 7 times in a row (so he could memorize the rhyming pairs) because he is really into “workers” right now. Unfortunately, he was almost inconsolable when he realized that the book with the train on the cover had absolutely nothing (else) to do with trains. Poor thing was trying to judge a book by the cover… sorry Holden, this is a magazine! The rules are different.
High Five is much better as a wake-your-brain-up-while-sitting-still activity than a bedtime story. Alec likes that he and Holden can sit down for some quiet time on the weekend and noodle on a few brainteasers while we’re housebound during Milo’s morning nap. I like to see him thinking and problem solving — basically going beyond the “which animal is the penguin?” problems we’ve been throwing at him. His brain is stretching in a new way, which is cool.
Of course, he can’t figure out all of the activities and that causes some amount of frustration, but heck, the kid’s not even 3 yet and the magazine is good until age 5. And that also gives me a chance to 1) practice my restraint and 2) praise him for his efforts and not just his talents (the verb and not the noun).
Related Links:
> Check out High Five Magazine for a two- to five-year-old that you love.
> Find out with other Parent Bloggers think and join the blog blast on 3/7 to win your own subscription (to either High Five or Highlights).
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The fine print: I was sent a subscription of High Five in order to provide a review for you. My opinion is my own. I don’t even know if Whitney agrees with me. I think educational magazines are good gifts for kids, especially ones with too many toys already. I also wrestled with the title of my post and decided that “High five for High Five” was too embarrassing.
