The Making of a Queen

I wrote this song a couple of years ago but haven't shared the music until now.  I'm bringing it out in response to the discussion of our cultural obsession with disney princesses.  I love the article and picture essay of the 5-year-old aspiring to be like real women in history.  I think it is important for us to give our daughters realistic goals for their future.  Not everybody can be like Kate Middleton and marry a real prince.  But in a free country, every little girl can aspire to live happily ever after.

There are messages in the movies that I don't agree with.  Ariel runs away from home.  Belle falls in love with her captor (no way of telling this story without incorporating that element, unfortunately).  I'm not going to address those elements today.  The criticism I want to address is that of the Disney princess movies often ending with marriage.  Marriage is placed to represent that they lived "happily ever after", setting girls up for disappointment in life if they never marry. Can girls find happiness in adult life without marrying?  Of course they can.  Can they achieve great things without a husband?  Of course they can.  Indeed, the princess in history that I most admire never did marry.  Instead she became a great Queen who brought such prosperity to her country that the Elizabethan era was named for her.  Naturally we should not teach our daughters that everything depends on their becoming a wife someday.

But I don't think the princess stories teach that.  They tell a story of a girl who finds happiness in finding their true love- someone to share their life with and establish a family.  There's a big difference.  I have to wonder, what are we teaching when as a society we lash out at something so beautiful?  With the disintegration of the family, with broken marriages, single mothers dependent on welfare, and falling birth rates that threaten whole nationalities, we would do well to remember the example of these princesses- to marry.  Certainly we can't all marry a prince or a rich Mr. Darcy though we would all love to, but finding a good husband is a realistic goal for most little girls when they grow up.  Not unreasonable at all.

I love the lesson my parents taught me when I was small.  I wasn't taught to dream of being a princess someday.  I was taught that I AM A PRINCESS.  I am a princess because I am a daughter of God, the King of Heaven and Earth.  Therein lies my great worth.  Therein lies the worth of every little girl.  My biological father is also a king.  He is the king of our home and he rose to the occasion.  We are to be agents unto ourselves, every man a king, every woman a queen of that which falls under our jurisdiction.  If my father is a king then, I am a princess.  I wasn't taught to wait around for prince charming to come.  I was taught that if I want to marry a prince, I would have to be a princess.  I would have to act the part, to educate myself as a princess should, and to be the best person I could be.  That's what being a princess meant to me as a little girl.  When I went through the temple I gained an even greater appreciation of this principle.  In the walls of the temple, during the temple endowment, members are ordained to become kings and queens, priests and priestesses.  This blessing will be realized as we prove our faithfulness in this life, a blessing and reward we have to look forward to.

When I wrote this song, I was reflecting on the Relief Society Theme, which states that we find nobility in Motherhood.  It was shortly after my second child was born, a time of rejoicing in my life.  Whether or not a woman becomes a mother, we can all find nobility in this calling.  I don't want my daughters to feel deprived if they don't marry in this life because I believe as we are taught, that many of these things will be straightened out in the life to come.  We do believe that to attain the highest degree of glory, women AND men must have a spouse sealed to them in the walls of the temple.

I want to teach my daughters that while there is a need for botanists, nurses, teachers, anthropologists, and a host of other careers, what the world needs now more than ever is good mothers.  Mothers who know their own worth, who know the worth of their children, and who instill virtuous character sufficient to overcome the challenges of our day.  Mothers who love their children, spend time with them, and instill a moral code as only mothers can.  Glenn Doman teaches that mothers make the best mothers, and I wholeheartedly agree.  If children are the world's most valuable resource, then it stands to reason that motherhood is the noblest of professions, one worthy of admiration and respect.

That's my bottom-line takeaway from the princess culture.  There are many important things for us to teach our daughters.  Academics are important.  But let our girls wear the pretty dresses if they want.  Let them wear pink.  Let them dream of marrying a good man someday.  The more dreams like this that come true, the better off our world will be.

The Making of a Queen sheet music pdf

Free Piano Lessons 4 Kids Review

Today I'm so excited to share a wonderful resources with you- FREE piano lessons!  No joke, check it out.

http://www.freepianolessons4kids.com/

Scroll down for the giveaway!

When I was a teenager, I remember asking my Dad, an entrepreneur, why he one of his products was so much less than his competitors.  Why not charge the same and make more money?  His answer was that he knows how much he himself loves to find a bargain, and how much bargains have helped him raise a large family.  He said that whenever you can make something more affordable, you are doing a service to your customers.  He told me he would rather serve 100 people to make $100 bucks than rake a couple of people over the coals for the same amount of money.  Likewise, he likes to give his business to people who share that philosophy and are serving the community with their business.  Yes, you do have to put food on the table, people understand that, but the wonderful thing about making something affordable is that you will attract more customers.  You serve more people, and you still have your needs provided for.  That lesson from my Dad has really stuck with me.

In the music education business, websites like freepianolessons4kids are a breath of fresh air.  As a musician, I have been really surprised at the cost of many music materials.  Math websites an resources are a dime a dozen.  Same goes for reading, spelling, and writing.  Why not music?  I've been so shocked at the price tag of some of the music products I've come across in the past.  When I first examined Joseph Hoffman's site, I immediately thought of what my dad had said and I loved it right away.  He is a good man who sincerely wants to help more children learn the fundamentals of music and he has made it very affordable.  This website is a real gem and a service to the online community.  This is his business model:

The piano lessons are free.  Completely, totally, 100% free on YouTube.  They are the meat and potatoes, and they are designed so that you don't really need anything else to progress through the lessons.  Isn't that wonderful?  The lessons are fantastic too.

For sale is the e-book that has a printout for every lesson.  Sometimes it's a cutting activity.  Sometimes it's a coloring activity.  Sometimes it's the music written on the staff so you can become more familiar with reading music.  There's a rich variety from lesson to lesson.  It's very well done.  You can also purchase the videos on DVD.  I love this business model.

So now that we know that it's affordable and I like his business model, it's time to look at why I love the piano lessons themselves.

First off, my kids love them.  They really love Mr. Hoffman.  My 4-year-old is so proud to tell people that she is taking piano lessons and Mr. Hoffman is her teacher.  Every time we finish watching a video she waves at the screen and says "Goodbye, Mr. Hoffman!"  She really loves him.  My 5-year-old especially enjoys the movement incorporated into the lessons, and the Early Learning community will be happy to know that while my 2-year-old hasn't actually played the lessons on the piano, he is gaining a lot from the lessons as well.  He is able to count the rhythms "ta, ta,  ti-ti, ta", sing the songs, and overall has a good sense of accomplishment at the end of the lessons.  He knows he is getting piano lessons too and he loves it.  Mr. Hoffman is his music teacher too.  I don't hesitate to recommend these videos to very young children, they don't have to practice on a piano to benefit.  (although obviously for best results you would.)  Concepts like low and high, fast and slow, steady beat, the music alphabet, and SOLFEGE are taught very well and thoroughly. 

I think it's awesome that he teaches solfege.  He teaches the ABCs and incorporates movable do (which I prefer over fixed do) into the lessons, so Do-Mi-So is synonymous with a I chord.  By the end of the e-book you are playing simple melodies, like the frog song in my review video above, in the right hand, while accompanying with chords in the left hand.  And they kids will understand the why behind the chord as well.  I love the theory in the lessons, and the e-book reinforces it very well.  By the way, it's a full-color e-book, I just printed it out in black and white to save ink.

I love the story he uses to teach where the C is on the piano (and all the other letters).  It really stuck with my kids.  We've been using a piano insert with the letter names and the kids have been reluctant to get rid of it.  Well, shortly after watching these video clips, my 4 and 5-year-olds told me they didn't need it anymore.  And they were right!  So check out his videos for that perk alone.

The videos are short and sweet.  This is great for short attention spans.  You can move at your own pace.  Since my children have already had some piano exposure, we've been going through about 3 lessons a week although we will need to slow down soon.  If they don't "get" a topic, they can watch the video again.  It's short enough they can watch it before practicing each day really.  So go slow.  Go fast.  It's up to you.  Mr. Hoffman is always encouraging.  If the kid didn't practice for a week there's no awkward apologies necessary.  Just pick up where you left off and work through it.  I am finding that short video lessons with worksheets and other non-media reinforcement afterwards has been the best education model for my kids and our family.  That's what we're doing with http://thehevproject.com/ too.  It's a great way to learn.

I've hit on it already, but I love the kinesthetic reinforcement.  Children stand up and move to demonstrate Do-Mi-So, proper posture, bad posture, and steady beat.  Awesome.

I love the Kodaly elements that are in the lessons.  I recognize that influence, and I think it's fantastic.  Things like showing notes on a one-line staff, rhythm solfege, the rhythm and letter flashcards, and the kinesthetic elements are things I associate with the Kodaly/Orff teaching methods.  The most powerful, life-changing music class I had in college wasn't one required for my vocal peformance degree.  It was my Orff training I had one summer before I internshiped with the Cache Children's Choir.  My piano-teaching approach dramatically changed after that class, for the better.  My students were better able to understand and internalize music concepts with the tools I gained.   And it's so much more fun!  I wish every music teacher could benefit from this kind of training.  I wish every music student, especially children, could gain from this kind of teaching approach.  Well parents, Mr. Hoffman's got it and he's nailed it.

The other question is, does this replace piano lessons with a paid teacher?  Well, that's up to you.  Ultimately there's no replacement for real-life feedback.  If you are uncomfortable with teaching piano, hiring a teacher is a great option.  There's something to be said for a weekly commitment with a teacher.  If you pay for something, you take it more seriously too- they say you get what you pay for, and it goes both ways- sometimes you get what you pay for because you expect to get it and put in the effort.  But we're talking about the very basics of piano here.  These videos will not prepare you for Solos and Ensembles or other like-music competitions by any means.  But they will teach the basics, no matter what age you are.  If you know nothing about piano, you can learn with your children.  I wouldn't put an upper or lower age limit on these videos.  You are where you are.  If you are a beginner, you will benefit from watching these.

As an early learning advocate, I'll put in a special plug as well.  It is hard, it can be nigh impossible, to find a teacher willing to take a 3 or 4 year-old for piano lessons.  Usually it's not because young children can't learn to play piano, but because they lack the attention span for a 30 minute lesson, which seems to be the gold-standard length for children.  Not only that, we seem to think young children HAVE to practice 30 minutes a day for it to be worth the money and effort to take them to lessons.  Because of this barrier, many wait until their children are 7 or 8 to start.  Even then, there's still the issue of jumping in and creating burnout.  Even at 7 or 8, a beginning piano student needs to taste success and unless they are naturally inclined to music, they will reject the new 30 minute workload.  20+ years later we hear them regret that they quit piano when they had the opportunity as a child.  I think these online piano lessons are the perfect bridge for preparing children for formal lessons with a teacher.  A child who has gone through these lessons will have a good foundation and will be ready for that workload.  Alternatively, these videos are an excellent tool for piano teachers to use with their beginning students.  Let the videos and e-book be their homework, and an in-person teacher can reinforce what they have learned.  Either way, you win.  And the videos are on YouTube!

It's giveaway time!

www.www.freepianolessons4kids.com is hosting a giveaway for 3 (three!) copies of their e-book that accompanies lessons 1-41.  Thank you so much!  Good luck everybody.  :)

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Disclaimer: www.freepianolessons4kids.com gave me a free copy of the e-book for review.  I was not otherwise compensated for the review, and my opinions shared are my own.

Math Resources

I have been meaning to do a post on all of the different math activities and things that we have been doing and none of them seem to warrant their own post, so let's have a math smorgasbord and look at everything briefly.  We really love math at our home.  :)

As a follow-up to my soroban post, this is the primary thing we are doing now.  I told my mom how cool I think the soroban abacus is and she showed me a neat homeschooling site called thehevproject.com, which has short and sweet abacus training videos with 15-problem worksheets after each lesson.  There are only 33 lessons, but that's plenty to get our feet in the door so that's where we are starting.  I'm looking forward to telling you more about this website in an upcoming post.  When I saw the abacus in the video, we went ahead and bought two Japanese Soroban Wood Abacus from Amazon (one for each of my older kids), got on hev's monthly plan, and today Peter finished lesson 10.  Helen will start next week.  So far so good.

Last Christmas we were working on multiplication.  We bought the flashcards and played games on www.multiplication.com.  Helen really liked the stories but Peter never really engaged with it.  Now we're doing soroban, but when we get back to learning our tables, I'm going to really dig into this site.

Thanks to the advertisements, I noticed www.bigbrainz.com.  We downloaded the demo and Peter BEGGED me for the full version.  We got the 3-month subscription for Christmas and they really loved it.  The catch for us was that I played the game with the kids and told them the answers.  That's just where we were at.  I told my 5-year-old the answer like this, "eleven times six is sixty-six", and he would have to type it in.  My 3-year-old got to hear "sixty-six", and my 2-year-old got to hear "six, six".  I passed the biggest bosses for them all.  They all had fun, and all of them became very good at typing numbers quickly.  It was a great approach except that it backfired a little because after they had each won that way, none of them wanted to play the game anymore, so we let our subscription laps.  Maybe we'll come back to it.  My personal thought:  it's very much like a video game, and I have mixed feelings on docking kids as much for falling off a a machine as they do for missing a problem.  The graphics were fun.  I had fun playing it.  I never mastered my 12 times tables past 5 until I played the game myself.  Now I'm sharp as a pin with all my multiplication facts up to 12.  Ta-da.  It worked for me!  Maybe not the best thing for the early learning crowd unless you alter the game like I did.  Then again, maybe your EL kids are sharper than mine.

The kids seem to be benefiting a lot from our family subscription to more.starfall.com.  There are some really cute math songs and games there.

I would love to spend some time exploring http://wholemovement.com/.  I am amazed at what can be created and and learned by simply folding circles.

The kids love Mr. Numbers on YouTube, and again, when we get to our times tables, I'm going to dig deep into http://www.patternplaymath.com/.  I like the idea of using more than one approach to teaching, and I love what he has done.  His materials are very affordable too.

Before I got into Soroban, I printed out Ray's new primary arithmetic for young learners.  (Thanks to nee1 on BrilldKids for pointing this out!).  There are 89 lessons with between 15-30 problems each.  They seem like good practice questions, so if money is tight and you want a step-by-step approach, this will do the trick.  I still plan on making sure that ink wasn't wasted.  I think a child who completes this book will be ready to advance to Saxon 5/4.  :)

Speaking of Saxon, my plan is to use it as soon as my kids are ready for Saxon 5/4.  Did you know that Saxon himself didn't write Saxon books for the earlier grades?  Well, he didn't.  The company that ended up with the rights to his books did so they could make more money, and the general consensus I'm getting is that they aren't as good.  My father-in-law didn't like the 1st grade material when he used it at a private school.  I don't want to use it for the early grades.  I want something more hands on.  Like the soroban!  But after reading and following this thread, and then reading Robert Levy's reviews of Saxon math on Amazon.com, I am quite sold on using it for the upper grades.  I'm on track to begin Saxon 5/4 in about a year.  I think I could do it sooner, but I really want to focus on abacus training and developing mental math skills.  My plan is to finish the hevproject lessons, then do Ray's book with the aid of the soroban, supplementing with other sources as wanted, then the "in a nutshell" 3rd grade math on hevproject, and on to Saxon 5/4.  I've got a plan, and I LOVE having a step-by-step, know-what's-next plan.
Edit:  They say that to start Saxon 5/4, all a child needs to know is how to add and subtract two-digit numbers, and your multiplication up to 10.  Young children who know this information do well in Saxon 5/4, and it is thorough for other math topics.  Saxon designed 5/4 to be his beginning math book, and as such, it is comprehensive.  Starting 6-year-olds with the 5/4 book is not uncommon in the BrillKids community for this reason.  I promise I'm not a draconian drill-to-kill mom.  My kids actually really enjoy math, but I wouldn't call them a math whiz.  What I am suggesting, what I am using, is an accelerated math path.  Saxon is very good for this.  For more information, read the thread I referenced.  :)

For the younger kids.

Once upon a time, when I had but one baby, I read Glenn Doman's "How to teach your baby math."  Then I did something crazy.  I bought $40-ish worth of materials and painstakingly made my own math-dot cards.  I was crazy.  And stupid.  Shortly after finishing I found a site where I could have just printed them out instead of using stickers.  Really?  All that time down the drain.  :'(  You think I'm joking?  It was such a pain to check to double check to make sure each card had exactly as many dots as I thought it did.  I placed thousands of dot stickers.  Stupid.  Don't do that. Technology means you don't have to, there's plenty of free resources out there.  Check this article out for more information on Doman's math dot program.

I have a hard time trying to make the sale when it comes to BrillKids Little Math program.  Why?  Because I know it doesn't always work.  Little Reader and Little Musician are simply amazing, and I have perfect confidence that they will work so I freely endorse them.  Little Math, I'm not so confident about.  Certainly there are cases where Doman's dot program has worked remarkably well, such as here, but youtube isn't littered with success stories like it is with babies reading.  One theory as to why this isn't the case is because parents can't reinforce it when away from the learning materials.  We can say, "Look, that sign says stop", and read cereal boxes to them, but we can't say "Hey, look at those 46 sheep in that field", or "Hey, you spilled 53 cheerios on the floor."  Maybe that's part of it.  I am convinced that using Little Math with my young children has been beneficial for my children, and that all early exposure to learning has its benefits.  Nothing is wasted.  But it's a hard sell.  I don't think I would have purchased it without my deep understanding of Doman's work, of how babies' brains develop, and how my kids don't have to demonstrate the ability to quantisize big numbers for the program to be successful.  So there you have it.  If you want to be sold on BrillKids' Little Math program, read Glenn Doman's math book and know that Little Math does all of the work for you, all you have to do is push play and there are cute icons that flash for you and keep track of everything.  If you read Doman's book and want that for your child, get Little Math.  That's it.  I'm not going to try to sell it any more than this paragraph.  Someday soon maybe my baby will demonstrate that she's a math whiz and I'll change my tune, but in the meantime I'm content to say that we have Little Math and we faithfully use it.  It's very well done.

TweedleWink also incorporates the math dots into their lessons.  We bought the whole package and we really love it- full review coming soon.  :)  Also, Your Baby/Child Can Discover incorporates math in an engaging way that we really love.  These programs aren't "sit down and do math" videos, but they are part of our overall math enrichment, so I share them here.

Math Games and Activities is an awesome book I stumbled upon and we've used it a lot.  Fun with tangrams also stemmed from this book.

A friend in my local homeschooling group shared this.  It's so cool.  Math is beautiful.  I made a printout for this and we've played with it with clear glass pebbles.  They place them, for example, on numbers divisible by 3, and it's a self-correcting activity because it makes a pattern.
http://www.datapointed.net/visualizations/math/factorization/animated-diagrams/
And here's a blog post with a few ideas on how to use it:
http://mathinyourfeet.blogspot.com/2012/11/new-math-game-factor-dominoes.html
She references this blog, which has a higher quality image for a print-out:
http://mike-naylor.blogspot.com/2012/11/factor-visualization.html

We play with pattern blocks a lot.  It's mostly free-play, but we do have some pictures they can place the pieces on.  There are some awesome teaching ideas for pattern blocks on this channel:  https://www.youtube.com/user/erloakland/videos.

https://www.khanacademy.org/ is awesome.

Products I would get in a heart-beat with a dream budget:  Math-U-See (we only have manipulatives and a decimal street poster, not the actual lesson books and videos), Mathtacular, Touchmath, Rightstart Math, and I definitely plan on getting Hands on Equations.

Phew!  I hope there's some gold nuggets in this article for you.  :)

Beginning Rhythm giveaway

I'm hosting a giveaway of my own product, Beginning Rhythm, for two reasons.  First because this blog recently reached 100,000 page views and I want to celebrate.  :)  But mostly because I have been asked to do a review and giveaway for another company, and since I haven't really done a give-away before, I wanted to test the waters and learn how to do one.  I know, I'm behind the times, but better late than never, right?

I'm doing the giveaway through "Giveaway Tools".

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Ride on the Magic School Bus

My kids are CRAZY about this show.  We bought the complete series for Christmas, and bar none, it was their favorite item.  They prefer this show over any of our Disney movies.  And because I like it too, I let them watch it.  Well, it's permeated our family life.

How do I know?

My two-year-old starts each day with "Good morning, class."

My four-year-old is our safety queen when we get in the car.  "Single file please."  "Seatbelts everyone!"

My 5-year-old knows he's funny because he has started quoting Carlos' jokes.  All the time.  Only, they usually don't fit.  But because Carlos said it, it must be funny, right?  I laugh because I know this is his thought process.  But he takes it further.  He has started making his own acronyms like Carlos.  For example, he asked me a few days ago, "Mommy, did you know that plants need CD?"  Huh?  I'm wondering if "seed-ie" is some kind of Peter language talk for seeds.  He was so pleased when I didn't get it and he could deliver his punchline-  "Carbon Dioxide!"

But it's not just my kids.  I am changing too.  I absolutely love and admire Ms Frizzle.  I am saying things like "It's time to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy."  "Ah, excellent observation, Helen, blah blah blah", in Frizzle fashion.  And before I answer (they know I'll get to it), I say, "Excellent question, anyone care to guess?"  Haha, I've been frizzled, all right.

As I've watched the show, I know more and more that it's not just her enchanting bus with it's Mesmerglober, her porta-shrinker, her amazing house, her deep bag Mary Poppins must have given her, or even her crazy outfits and glowing earings that make her special.  Ms Frizzle is a first-class teacher and I am trying to learn from her.

When her kids argue, she doesn't just barge in and stop it.  She creates an environment where the children will learn better behavior on their own.  When children ask questions, she gives them a hands-on experience to answer it.  When things go wrong, she is always optimistic.  "Ah, don't you just love it when that happens?  Now we can learn about...."    She is kind.  She keeps her kids safe (somehow.  gee, I would love to know how she does that in a volcano, an oven, or in an airplane without power).  She's not afraid to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy BECAUSE she understands that this is the way that children learn.  The best part of all is that she takes her kids on field trips.  Homeschooling shouldn't all be in the house.  I need to be better at that.

Yes, I can learn a lot from Ms. Frizzle.  Yes, children, you may watch another episode while I make dinner.  But just one.  Let's use it as a springboard and learn more about it together.

Home birth, part II

I'm doing a page break on this article to make skipping it easy if learning about home-birth is not your thing.  :)

Oh, and this post contains adult content.

March Reading List

Here's March's reading list, for what it's worth.  I feel a little like I'm cheating on the Mercy Watson books, but one, I need a little help catching up, and hey, when you have your two-year-old helping you read, even short chapters deserve a little credit.  We discovered Mercy Watson this month when I asked the librarian for help in finding full-color chapter books to help my 5-year-old build his attention span.  She was right, he loved these, and he had no problem reading these books on his own.  On the other hand, he still didn't need a bookmark because they are short, so we're still looking.  He's so spoiled to have full-color books.  Maybe I need to look for awesome black and white story books and that would help.  I'm sure once he figures it out, there will be no holding him back.  :)  We're still behind our goal for the year though, so I need to keep pushing myself!  Here are a few resources that I plan on tapping into for help (thank you BrillKids forum).  (I post these to help ME find them later, lol).

http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/library.htm

http://www.wegivebooks.org/

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/online-storytime-books-toys/379003588/

http://www.readtomelv.com/

http://www.kiddierecords.com/

http://www.rif.org/kids/readingplanet/bookzone/read_aloud_stories.htm

1. A Crack in the Track (x2)
2. 
   
3. A Giraffe Grows Up
4. A Tiger Cub Grows Up
5. Are we there yet? (x3)
6. 
   
7. 
   
8. Army Ants
9. Artic Foxes and Polar Bears (homemade book)
10. Be Good, Bobos! 
11. Broken Bones
12. Carl’s Masquerade (x2)
13. Cars- Driving Buddies
14. Chicken in the Kitchen
15. Clifford’s First School Day
16. Dinosaur Train- Tiny learns to fish!
17. Disney Princess- The Sweetest Spring
18. Disney Princesses- The Perfect Dress
19. Eeyore giant board book
20. Finding Nemo- Just Keep Swimming
21. Five Teddy Bears
22. Hand, hand, fingers, thumb
23. I am a Child of God
24. I am invited to a party
25. If I Built a Car (x4)
26. 
    
27. 
    
28.  
29. Jane Goodall- The Chimpanzees I Love (we skimmed and admired the pictures, still counts!)
30. Lego City- Calling all Cars!
31. Lego Star Wars- Anakin to the Rescue!
32. Let’s Play Ball!
33. Meat-Eating Plants- Toothless Wonders
34. Meet the Robinsons- A Family for Lewis (x2)
35.  
36. Meet the Robinsons- Journey to the future
37. Mercy Watson goes for a ride (12 chapters)
38.  
39.  
40.  
41.  
42.  
43.  
44.  
45.  
46.  
47.  
48.  
49. Mercy Watson Thinks like a Pig (15 chapters)
50.  
51.  
52.  
53.  
54.  
55.  
56.  
57.  
58.  
59.  
60.  
61.  
62.  
63.  
64. Mercy Watson to the rescue (12 chapters)
65.  
66.  
67.  
68.  
69.  
70.  
71.  
72.  
73.  
74.  
75.  
76. Mercy Watson- Princess in Disguise (16 chapters)
91.  
92. Monsters Inc- Boo on the Loose
93. No, David
94. One Hundred Shoes
95. One little, two little, three little Pilgrims
96. Peek-a-Boo
97. Piglet giant board book
98. Pigs and Peccaries
99. Pinkalicious
100. Pooh giant board book
101. Prairie Dog’s Hideaway
102. Rapunzel’s Amazing Hair (x3)
103.  
104.  
105. Ratatouille- Run, Remy, Run!
106. Read with Dick and Jane
107. See the Yak Yak
108. Shapes- Circles
109. Sleepy Boy
110. Soccer Song
111. Star Wars- Clone Troopers in Action
112. Start to Finish- From Egg to Butterfly
113. The boy who harnessed the wind (William Kamkwamba)
114. The day I was rich
115. The End
116. The King who tried to fry an egg on his head
117. The story of Ruby Bridges
118. Tigger giant board book
119. Time for a Bath (Steve Jenkins and Robin Page)
120. Toy Story- A Spooky Adventure
121. Toy Story- Buzz’s Backpack Adventure
122. Toy Story- Friends Forever
123. Toy Story- Move Out!
124. Toy Story- The Bunny Surprise
125. Toy Story- The Great Toy Escape
126. Toy Story- Toy to Toy
127. We are in a Book! (x5)
132. We need construction workers
133. Weird and Wonderful Fish
134. What do you call a baby Rhino?
135. Whose Teeth are these?
136. Will You be my Friend?