Anna Crowley Redding

When C was first born, some expert in the one of the 30 baby books I consumed said I should sing to my baby, give him a massage, establish a bedtime routine for baby and on and on and on.

The advice is really endless and each missive more important than the next (you feel sure that if you don’t follow every word of advice, your baby might not make it)… so there I was at 5pm, starting C’s TWO hour bed time routine. Bath and baby massage while singing the song about the bones! The foot bone’s connected to the leg bone. (BTW, baby #2? Simply put in his crib with a ‘good night.’)

This week’s reading list brought me right back to those days. Dem Bones by Bob Barner is a wonderful read. The illustrations paired with this old spiritual are fantastic and dovetail perfectly into our study of dem bones! The pages are filled with fun factoids about the bones which will make this book a keeper for years to come!

While I read the book to C., he set about working on this foam floor puzzle. And I love it. This will be a learning tool we’ll use for a long time as C’s understanding grows over the years. And yet the puzzle is simple enough that he can nearly complete it by himself! One the puzzle is complete, we sing the bones song as C points to each bone as its mentioned!

To keep track of all of our human anatomy reading, we’ve made the book spine to end all book spines. Cuz ours is a real spine.

Perhaps not a candidate for a Martha Stewart spread, but he’s very friendly. Just not a looker.

I’ve printed out the book covers so they make up our vertebra. Just like with our reading sea snake, I find it’s more helpful for Crowley to see the covers of the books so there is an instant visual recognition to what he’s accomplished! We also printed out a skull from a free template found online. We printed it on construction paper and later added the rib cage and arms. The perspective is a little wacky, I have to admit. On the upside, our skeleton is plenty friendly and not scary. And with every new book we read, he just gets lonnnger!

Here’s what we are reading!

Inside Your Outside!: All About the Human Body By Tish Rabe and Aristides Ruiz

Dem Bones by Bob Barner

The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen

The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen

Human Body (Insiders) by Linda Calabresi

Navigators: Human Body by Miranda Smith and Alex Pang

I provided links to all the books above to make it easy for you. But honestly, these are all available at your local book store! Not to mention you’ll find them on library shelves! We also rented the companion DVD to the Magic School Bus from Netflix and it’s the perfect animated tie-in. Crowley loves watching it. And even though they are going over pretty complicated stuff, he’s glued to it!

Tomorrow, a field trip! Next week, I’m thinking Olympics prep! Thoughts?

Enjoy!

Anna

P.S. We have an ear infection in the house which means we’re a little sleep deprived. All this to say, I am ready for my night time routine. Anyone available to sing to me, draw my bath or arrange for a Swedish massage? A little rocking? No?