Encouraging our daughters to develop a love of reading has thankfully been quite easy for us; developing reading interests beyond "Princess Books" has been the big hurdle. You know the books I'm talking about here - the pink, the frilly, the 'life is sweet' type that sometimes offer a free tiara and the like. At an education conference this month, popular children's author Lauren Child said that "as a child she felt like a sponge, absorbing information from everywhere". Our daughters' preoccupation at a very young age with 'all things princess' left me wondering if they really were absorbing from... Read more →

PUBLISHER: HARPER COLLINS ISBN: 0064433226 This is one of our favourite picture books. It has a wonderfully slow pace and encourages children to tune into all the sounds we can hear in our immediate environment. When reading aloud you can recreate the sounds in the story with realism, thanks to the cleverness of the author- the noise of the bus is brilliantly captured. We decided to include a listening element to our nature walk this week and packed some special items to take along in a little bag. Twig colouring pencils Mini journal Binoculars Green and yellow tags - the... Read more →