A Few Reviews for the Parent in You

Subtitled: How we stayed sane during all of our summer lessons drive time, with a good rousing read-aloud thrown in for good measure.

The Wiggles: Here Comes the Big Red Car

The music in this CD is happy, fun and very well done. We checked it out from the library and had to renew it after three weeks, we liked it so much. Included are many classic sing-alongs (albeit the Australian versions) such as Five Little Joeys, Pufferbillies and Joannie Works with One Hammer. They also surprised me by doing an absolutely beautiful acoustical version of Sanctissima at the end. That song alone would be worth the price of the CD, I should think, though far too short in length to satisfy my heart’s desire.

Signing Time! Songs: Volumes 4-6

This review is not to familiarize you with the Signing Time DVDs, because I’m pretty sure you know about them. Do you have a copy of the music for the van, though? Oh my goodness, can that Rachel de Azevedo Coleman sing. It’s a good thing, too, because my little girls request this every single time we’re in the van.

I chose to buy Volumes 4-6 because this particular set includes many of my favorite songs from the series: In a House, Beautiful Day, A is for Alex and Alligator, and LMNO. Oh, and we can’t forget that sassy, jazzy tune Lonely Letter X.

Then I went to their website and printed out a color copy of the lyrics. I stuck them into some clear page protectors and put it all into a binder, like so:

The girls can now take turns following along in the van.

(Just so you know, this is about as close as I get to being a crafty mom.)

Danny the Champion of the World was our read-aloud this summer, and was one of those “Please please please can you read another chapter?” choices. Danny is a 9-year-old boy who is being raised by his kind, attentive father after the death of his mother. The story is set in England but for some reason both Danny and his father sound as if they’re from the north of Ireland, while Dr. Spencer is clearly from County Cork. For the life of me, I can’t do a decent English accent unless I really, really think about it, or unless I’ve been watching the BBC production of Pride & Prejudice.

We loved this tender yet exciting little tale with its depiction of a truly beautiful father/son relationship. My kids did ask about the ethics of all the poaching (i.e. stealing) that goes on in the book and I didn’t have a good answer for them, other than that the man being stolen from “had it coming”. He is outrageously mean—a caricature of a mean person, really—but still, my answer doesn’t satisfy me. I’ll have to pray about that one.

That’s all, folks! Enjoy these last few days of summer—can it be Labor Day weekend already?!! sigh—and may God bless you & yours.