Library Trip

I went to the public library in town again for the first time in a long time.  It’s not that I don’t like to read…I LOVE to read!  But I didn’t have much time to read a bunch of books that didn’t revolve around school.  Now that I’m on summer break, I have some time.

So I went a little crazy with picking up books on a bunch of the subjects I’m interested in…I ended up having to stop because my bag was getting too heavy, though I did have books for the boys in there, too!  I’ll pick up where I left off the next time I go in 2 weeks.

These are the books I picked up:

• Love by Design by Nora Roberts — Two books in it and one of the few I haven’t read yet.
• The Real Estate Investing Answer Book by Denise L. Evans, Attorney at Law — Looks like lots of great information.  I’ve been wanting to buy some rental properties for a long time…it’s a long-term goal of mine for future retirement income.  I can’t afford another home right now (never count on it having a tenant that will pay the mortgage…things happen so you should be able to afford another mortgage payment on your own just in case…it’s called being smart), but it never hurts to start the learning process.
• Write From Life by Meg Files – Looked like a pretty interesting book…I have a ton of writing books, some good, some I should probably get rid of, but this one looks like one I may need to buy to refer back to again and again.
• Money Still Doesn’t Grow on Trees by Neale S. Godfrey — This is actually a Young Adult book found in the teen section.  I want to look through it and see if I can find some interesting tidbits that could get my 8- and 11-year-olds more in tune with saving and understanding money better.
• eBay Quick Steps by John Cronan and Carole Matthews — I’ve used Half.com to sell items plenty of times, but I’m still on the fence about eBay…especially regarding the shipping part…I get so hung up on that!  I have a ton of things I would love to sell on eBay, so I thought I’d see if this book could give me the answers that would make me feel more comfortable with the entire process.  I would love to get rid of more stuff and make some money in the process!

Also, my boys got some books while we were there.  My 11-year-old already had a library card.  He decided to get two books about the plague…he keeps on touching us with the books and saying we now have the plague…silly boy!  We got my 8-year-old his first library card.  He got some movies (Fantasia, Fantasia 2000, and Science & Seasons) and one book — Life: Our Century In Pictures.  He really likes looking at past events.

If I find anything extremely interesting in these books, then I’ll write about it!

What are you reading?

My Brain is Exploding!

OK…it’s not really exploding, but I’ve been having a ton of story ideas flowing through my brain! 

I cannot wait until school is out on Friday!

I plan on finishing some household projects and get some writing done, too.  I will be really happy if I can get some outlines written out before classes start again in August.

Here’s a list of some of the things I’d like to do over my summer break:

• Finish entry floor
• Finish painting the entry walls
• Finish making hanging coat rack for entry
• Finish the main area of the kitchen floor
• Finish painting the kitchen walls
  
• Finish painting the hallway walls
• Finish spray painting the outlet covers
• Write out at least one book outline
• Work on book already outlined
• RELAX…take breaks with the boys, take mini vacations with the family

What do you have planned for the summer?

So Proud and Amazed!

Earlier in the year I wrote about reading lexiles and how high my 8-year-old’s lexile was here.

His teacher re-tested all of her students to find out if they have improved in their reading and comprehension since the middle of the school year.  This will also help them start out the new school year in August.

My 8-year-old now has a 962L lexile score!

Let’s put this into perspective here…

…he ended 1st grade with a 423L.  At the beginning of 2nd grade he had a 750L, at mid-year he had an 873L.  And now at the end of 2nd grade it’s at 962L.

So in one year he went up 539 points!  And he really seems to enjoy reading unlike my other son, who reads just as well, but has to be forced to read a book unless he’s extremely interested in it.  I think we may start running out of books for my youngest to read in the school library in a couple of years unless they get a lot of new ones by then!  I’ve already chosen books from the 3rd-6th grade section for him to read throughout the school year, though 2nd graders really are not allowed in that section.  I also have a book list we may check out over the summer at the public library.

I used the Lexile.com book finder to search for books within his lexile range that were also age appropriate.  He ended up with a lexile range of 860L to 1010L, and I entered an age range of 8-10.  From there I chose books I thought he may enjoy and placed them on my reading list, which I then printed out.  We have 43 books on the list, though some are series so there may be more for him to read.

We’ll have to see what is available when we go to the library this summer!

Kindle Collections

I can’t wait until the new update becomes available for my Kindle!  I was just thinking about some suggestions on being able to better sort the books on it, but they thankfully beat me to it!

Sometime this month (May), Amazon is going to allow you to sort your books into categories that you create.  I only have about 250 books (it holds about 1600) on there right now, but I was already having problems trying to find the books I want to read.  Currently you can sort books by Most Recent First, Author, or Title.  However, you still have to page through each page to find what you are looking for!

I figured if I was having problems with only 250 books, what was it going to be like with 1600!

I was going to suggest a way for us to mark our favorites and let us also sort by genre to make it easier.  What they came up with isn’t so automated, however, I’m very happy that I will be able to create my own categories in their new sorting selection called Collections.  Now I can create a Favorites category, plus sort my books by my own categories such as Non-Fiction, Classics, Romance, Children’s, etc.

This will greatly cut down on the books I have to search through to find the one I want!

Does anyone else have a Kindle?

Random Ramblings

Wanted to do a bunch of rambling about things that don’t seem to go together.  They weren’t enough on their own to create separate posts so I’m putting them all in together.

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Rambling #1!

First I want to say that if a comment you make does not make it into print, then it was probably caught up in the spam net!  WordPress has askimet that automatically removes any comments from what it considers spam sites, IP addresses, etc. 

I never see these!

I have no idea whether it was really spam or not! 

I’d say I was sorry, but I’m not sorry at all!

I enjoy not being bothered by spam so if a couple of true comments don’t get through, then I’m not going to worry about it.  There’s a reason somewhere why it was caught up in the spam count!

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Rambling #2

My Google Reader is totally out of control!  Even after deleting a bunch of blogs and then clearing out the posts there, I now am back to almost 1000 posts to read!

I know it’s because I have a couple of blogs that put out a tremendous amount of posts each day!  But seriously!  Do they have to post that much!

I have trouble sometimes putting out one post a day and they’re posting like thirty a day!  Unreal!

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy these particular blogs, but they don’t give me time to really read the posts, then comment on anything of interest.

I obviously need to come up with some other plan with my reader!

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Rambling #3

Does anyone else get sick of the internet?  I feel like sometimes I’m too plugged in and need to get away for a while.  That’s when I grab a book and just slip away from it.  A bit of a hard task for this family!  We all have our own computers and seem to always be on them!

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Ok…I think I’ve rambled enough for today.  I’m sure I’ll have more later.  I tend to think of many different things, but they come and go. LOL!

What are your ramblings for the day?

High Level Readers

Both of my boys are very good readers with above average reading lexile levels.  For those of you that don’t know what a lexile is, I’ll explain.

A lexile is a way to measure a child’s ability to read at a certain difficulty level.  The range goes from 200L for beginning readers or those with reading difficulties, to 1700L for more advanced readers.  Though there is no actual grade determination based on lexile, there are some “ranges”, but they are not set in stone.  A child may be in 400L area and be anywhere between a 2nd through 4th grade reading level.  Obviously you want to show an improvement each time the child is tested.

More information can be found at Lexile.com because it is more complicated than I could even begin to explain!

On top of that, you can download a PDF of the Lexile Map that shows the lexile levels along with grade “ranges” and book suggestions.

Also be aware that a lexile only shows the reading level and does not take the content into account!  There are some books that are below my 8-year-old’s reading level, but I could not let him read them because he is not old enough for the content.  Could become a very bad situation!

Now that I’ve gotten the explanations out of the way…I get to brag about my boys a bit!

I don’t know my 11-year-old’s exact lexile.  I’ll have to ask when I go in to volunteer at the media center next week, if there is time.  I asked him and he said it was probably in the 1200L range, but he’s not sure.  I do know he has always been a more advanced reader.  He’s read Contact and many other adult books that may be lower in lexile, but higher in content.  I allow him more leeway in his reading because he is about to go to middle school and is pretty mature at times.  It seems that lexiles go down anyway as they get older and the content gets more intense so the lexile is less important for my oldest right now than for my youngest.

My 8-year-old is a wonderful reader, too!  In 1st grade he was in the 300-400L range.  After the first test to measure his lexile this year (2nd grade), he was about 750L!  A huge jump!  He has since been tested again and his lexile is now 873L!  Needless to say I am trying to find him harder books to read that don’t tip into dangerous content.  He’s pretty mature like his brother, but still in the 2nd grade.  He enjoys watching the news and asks pretty good questions, so I know he can handle content a bit above his age/grade level, but I don’t want to get into all areas just yet!

So far I’ve had him read Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach.  He did wonderful with it!  Now he’s reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  See the pattern here?  I’m trying to find him harder books that they have made into movies I know he has seen, or is allowed to see.  I may have him read Stuart Little next.

Something I found on the Lexile.com website is an area where you can put in your lexile to find books.  You can then narrow down the results by age and lexile range.  Here is a list of the books suggested for my 8-year-old: Lexile Book List

He’s not interested in all of the books, but it does give us more ideas of books for him to read.  If you want to look up books for your child, click on “enter lexile” up top and you can start your own search.  You don’t even need to know the lexile because you can look up books by grade level, too!

Any one else want to brag?

Hurting

The back of my upper legs are killing me!  I didn’t hurt myself, but I apparently did a workout or something because my muscles are sore!

I must have done something different today at the elementary school media center than I usually do. Too many books?  *grin*

I guess I’ve never worked those muscles for some reason before!  Though whatever I did, I hope I don’t do it again!  LOL!