A blog full of absolutely useless information

The Ayres' have been truly engaged by various forms of written prose recently. Cuddled up on the bed during Jamie's bedtime story tonight 'Not bad for a bad lad' by Michael Morpurgo, with my voice cracking I said "oh silly mummy, I cant read properly because I'm crying". His response was "I think I am too". We both sat there with tears silently rolling down our cheeks, enthralled and sharing that special moment. It is an inspiring tale about what happens when you show someone how to follow their dreams - with some gorgeous illustrations too.

Here's a list of our top books of the summer so far :-

JAMIE - Aged 7
All kinds of feelings - Emma Brownjohn (A lift the flap book with game at the end-great for encouraging children to observe the feelings of others and recognise changes in their own emotions-**HIGHLY RECOMMENDED**
Not bad for a bad lad - Michael Morpurgo
You're a bad man, Mr gum

STANLEY - Aged 3
Pirate Pete - Kim Kennedy
The huge bag of worries -   (great for encouraging children to look at and help discuss their emotions)
The troll - Julia Donaldson (author of the Gruffalo)
Peter Pan - JM Barrie

HAYLEY - Siblings without Rivalry - Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish
How to talk so kids will listen & listen so kids will talk - Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish
Playful Parenting - Lawrence J. Cohen

DEAN - Homebuilding and renovating magazine

Inspired I believe by our trip to a small planetarium on the Isle of Wight, Jamie decided that he wanted to write a Space project over the Easter holidays. So we visited our local library and found a great book unsurprisingly called SPACE! 1000 facts by John Fardon. Sat around the table after dinner one evening once the children were in bed with my husband, parents and youngest brother, I thought Id flick through the said book to brush up on my skills and hopefully impress the mind of my ever enquiring 7 year old. Well, the whole evening turned into a debate largely going something like this :-
* My brother decided he felt The big bang theory was very wishy washy
* I was mortified to think that in five billion years time, the sun will have burned out and the earth will have turned to a cinder long before, meaning life as we know it will be wiped out including all my family (my brother was keen to point out that that far down the line, my extremely distant relatives will probably resemble an electronic droid or something similar)
* We all had a big laugh at the name of the astronomer 'Nicholaus Copernicus' - Childish I know, but funny at the time
* We tried to recall the last time Halley's comet passed through (which after researching was 1986)
* We remembered that we had all watched a satellite last summer passing overhead in the evenings
(..................................this drivel went on for some time) and we finished deciding to obtain and watch together Apollo 13.
And at risk of boring you to death, I hereby endeth the lesson