Cookies and Books

Little Guy's Summer Reading Journal

Little Guy just LOVES books!  Like to the point that when we go to the store, we'll spend (no kidding!) up to an hour in the book section so he can browse all the books and "read" his favorites.  It's like a free field trip because he's totally ok with not buying anything as long as he gets to look at and touch everything.  We've been very blessed in that aspect because he's always been like that.  If we tell him no, not today, he says "ok, maybe next time we can get me something?"  If I had a bunch of money I would seriously buy every book in the store for him!  Good thing we both have library cards!  By the way, the library's limit on the number of books you can check out at a time is 50- yep!  We reached the limit once and had to put a bunch of books back!  When I first signed up for a card the librarian told me the limit was "as many books as you can carry."  Well, through a few trips to the library (without bringing any books back), we managed to reach our limit.  I then said "oh, I was told that we could check out as many as we could carry."  Her reply?  "Most people don't reach that point."  Well my kid has a love for books, what can I say?  Did you notice that I said we both have library cards?  You got it!  That means we can check out up to 100 books!! (NOT gonna happen!  I'm NOT going to be responsible for that many books, plus we don't have the space for that many extra books!)  I have come up with a system, however.  When we've read a book, it goes back in the library bag.  When library day comes, we know what we've read and they get checked in while we pick out new books.  I can monitor when books are due online, and I also put a reminder on my phone when books are due so I can check what we have against what is online.  Do you have a system for your library books?

I have seen all kinds of ideas on Pinterest for reading journals for the big kids, but not much inspiration for the littles who are non-readers.  I thought it would be good for Little Guy to get in the habit of reciting what was just read, thus working on retention.  What better way to do that than record it in a journal?  He has really gotten into drawing, coloring and creating lately, so we made a summer reading journal.  It's 10 pages attached to one another with brads.  Little Guy helped by glueing white paper to colored card stock, then using the hole punch to create the holes for the brads.  We then created a title page (seen above) which is a picture of him standing in front of a fire truck dressed as a firefighter, holding two books- we had just read a book about firefighters.  The next book that made the cut into his journal was Corduroy by Don Freeman.  In case you can't read the picture, Little Guy's interpretation of the book was "About a bear who sneaked from bookshelf to bed to find his lost button.  A watchman came and found him.  Then he took him back to bookshelf.  A little girl came to buy him.  And then her took the little bear to her room and her sewed him a new button!  The End"

Corduroy next to the bed that had buttons

Drawing his interpretation of Corduroy by Don Freeman

And of course, no day is complete without making some chocolate chip cookies!  We used my Mom's recipe, which gives fluffy, chewy cookies every time!  I must say, this was the best batch yet!

Mmmm!  Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Want the recipe??  Here you go:

1 cup shortening (we use butter- real, not margarine)
2 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup water
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
Chocolate chips

Mix butter, sugar and eggs thoroughly.  Stir in water.  Stir flour, soda and salt together then blend into sugar mixture.  Chill 1 hour.  Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Drop rounded tsp of dough 2" apart on lightly greased or parchment lined cookie sheets.  Bake 8-10 minutes until almost no imprint remains when lightly touched.
Makes 6 dozen 2 1/2" cookies