Reading Journal #17 - The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier & The Write Start

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier by Ree Drummond

My thoughts:
I have probably mentioned this before, but cooking is not my forte. I do enjoy looking a cookbook that has normal recipes with meat and carbs. The Pioneer Woman does meet my standards. Not only are most of the recipes very normal, but I love how easy she makes them look by having a picture of each step of the process. I even had to jot a couple of them down to try. My favorite thing about her book is her incredible sense of humor that she intersperses through out her recipes. I would love to own both of her books--not to cook from them, but to read them and laugh.
Highly recommended!






The Write Start: A Guide to Nurturing Writing at Every Stage, from Scribbling to Forming Letters and Writing Stories by Jennifer Hallisey

My thoughts:
My 9 year old son was starting to work on cursive when I realized that he needed to stop and work on some fine motor skills. I had brought this book home from the library and realized it might have some great ideas to help us out. In the first section of the book the author talks about all the stages a child goes through as they learn to write. She starts with pre-writing skills all the way through writing on their own. Then in the next sections she shares 52 activities that your child can do and what they look like in each writing stage. She covers the categories of learning to write, things and activities to make and do as writers, how to play with writing, and finally activities that encourage young writers to connect with others. The final section has a variety of templates that you can copy for your children to use.

I really gleaned a lot from the beginning section where she talks about the importance of certain activities that will help a child as they become proficient in writing. I also found the activities under the "Learn" section which covered activities such as sky writing and writing in sand to be very helpful. This is a great resource for parents with preschoolers to help your child get a good foundation for writing in the years to come.



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