Books, books and more books. That’s what I’ve been up to. Ordering books for H.o.p. for this coming year. Math books and history books and science books.
Books, books and more books. And plenty of books now waiting in the Wish List for ordering later. I never know what’s going to catch H.o.p.’s interest.
Unexpectedly, I’ve ended up filling the Wish List with a variety of pop-up books, swayed by enthusiastic comments, and by H.o.p. standing alongside saying, “Oh, that! That! And that!” to every single pop-up book by Sabuda (who did the dinosaur pop-up book we have). They are more attractive than informative, but they’re fun. And expensive. For which reason they’re on the Wish List for treats to order as the year progresses.
While I was working on refining my choices, H.o.p. went with Marty to a bluegrass concert (a friend of Marty’s was playing).
H.o.p. loves bluegrass. When we are in the car, he always wants to listen to bluegrass music now.
I don’t care for bluegrass very much so didn’t go to the concert.
Though I hear the concert wasn’t that great, H.o.p. came home happy.
And while Marty made dinner and H.o.p. told me about the concert, I sorted through some of the books we have and trying to clear a couple of shelves for additions I realized, hell, we need another bookcase.
I tried scouting Ebay for books but eventually felt slimed by all the trash I was having to sort through in people’s stores. Plus, I’m not one for doing the bidding thing. Some things–lilke studio equipment?–fine for bidding. I don’t want to spend a number of days bidding on books just to lose and have to start bidding elsewhere.
That’s some of what I’ve been doing this week. Scouting out and lining up books and assorted materials. And reading up again on different ways of learning math. Most that aren’t text-based (which he doesn’t like) are game-based. So far, the only game H.o.p. likes to play is Monopoly. We have tried the kinds of games suggested for practical math skills and he hates them all. I thought for a moment I’d found a decent math computer game program much like the program that so caught his interest and started him on reading (not all kids read by being read to daily, believe me). The description was everything I was looking for. The screen-captures were interesting to H.o.p. But then I read comments made by those who’d purchased and immediately gave up the idea as there are too many bugs in the program and the latest edition has become so gamey that the background static is too distracting and even the kids complain it. Too bad.
By the way, H.o.p. is a Monopoly champ. He has the best luck. He consistently beats Marty and me. Playing him, we land in jail over and over again while he keeps zipping around the board. It’s freaky.
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