Day 9: BOO-HA

Day 9 of "30 Days of Farm Kid Stories"


Boo.  It was one of G’s first words.  Right after “Bah Bah Bah” and “Momma."  (Sorry,  Dadda)

“Boo” referring to “Moo” referring to “Cow."    G was Boo crazy.   He loved cows at the early age of 8 months.  He still loves them Boos, although now he can pronounce them correctly (most of the time.) 

Today’s farm story features a cow who struggles with words.

 The Cow That Went Oink by Bernard Most tells the story of a cow that is sad because he is not like other animals.  He is made fun of and hears a pasture full of “MOO-HA’s” from fellow cattle. 

The author emphasizes cow’s words in purple conversation bubbles.  Whether it is an “OINK” or a “MOINK” it’s in purple which helps the reader navigate the barnyard squawk.  

Zigzag squiggle lines represent rows of crops, heads of wheat and leaves on trees.  I chuckle when cow meets a pig who says “Moo”, especially when cow and pig help each other with vocabulary. 

This book emphasizes it’s ok to be different. It’s an advantage many times. 

And it’s a keeper.  This book labels more than a dozen animals and the associated noises they make.  G and I will practice our “Bow-Wow-Ha’s” and “Hee-Haw-Ha’s” tonight. 

What is your little one’s favorite animal noise? 

Lauren

My Library List:

Preview Day: 30 Days of Farm Kid Stories
Day 1: One Moment
Day 2:  Perfect Pizza
Day 3:  Our Heartland
Day 4: Pasta Fistful
Day 5: One Fast Grower
Day 6: Farmer Seuss
Day 7: Just One Cookie?
Day 8:  Frowns Turn into Smiles

Our blogging host Holly Spangler writes  “30 Days on a Prairie Farm” this month on her blog: My Generation.  

It’s a group party, of sorts!  Please join fellow bloggers as they tell their agricultural stories:

Beyer Beware: 30 Days, 30 Things You Never Knew About Food
Black Ink: Beef’s a Trip – 30 Days from Gate to Plate
Confessions of a Farm Wife: Life on Our Farm
Go Beyond the Barn: 30 Days of Farm Life Blessings
Kelly McCormick Photography: 30 Days of Thankfulness
Le Jardin da ma Vie: 30 Reasons Why I Love Being a Farmer’s Wife
Pinke Post: 30 Days of North Dakota November
Rural Route 2: 30 Days of the Not-So-Glamorous Life of This Farm Wife

Our party has expanded! Please be sure to also check out the below writers:

Touching Families: 30 Days of a Town Girl Touched by the Farming Life
This Land, This Life, This Farmer's Wife: 30 Days of Thankfulness on a Family Farm
Farmgirldays: 30 Days of Farm Kids Trapped in the City
My Cows and Pigs: 30 Days of "What's that?"
Dennis Olmstead: 30 Days in a Row
White House on the Prairie: 30 Days, 30 Posts
A Colorful Adventure: 30 Days of JP

G's list of Ag Books

I enjoy making lists. Then I quickly lose them.  I painstakingly print grocery lists on bright post it notes, arrive at the grocery store and promptly need to “wing it”.  No note can be found.  I end up at home with five cans of French onion soup I didn’t need. (true story)

Part of why I like lists is the marking off.  The quick slash through an item feels good. 

Surely I can’t lose a list posted online.  So here it goes

My list of books to read to G in the future:  Topic Agriculture

1. Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown
2. Fantastic Farm Machines by Cris Peterson
3. Oh Say Can You Seed?: All About Flowering Plants (Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library) by Bonnie Worth.  
4. Who Grew My Soup? By Tom Darbyshire and C. F. Payne
5. Cattle Kids: A Year on the Western Range by Cat Urbigkit
6. Corn by Gail Gibbons
7. Farming by Gail Gibbons
8. Extra Cheese, Please!: Mozzarella’s Journey from Cow to Pizza by Cris Peterson
9. Tops & Bottoms by Janet Stevens
10. The Cow that Went Oink by Bernard Most

I gathered ideas from a couple of cool sources. A blog called Small Nebraska Farming: The Smaller Guy You Don't See shared a fun post called Top Books for Farm Kids. Also Minnesota's Agriculture in the Classroom lists a children's literacy book bundle with fantastic reads. 

Although I love books that feature farm animals such as Click, Clack, Moo by Doreen Cronin, the portrayal of a farmer feels somewhat cliche.  Do all farmers wear a straw hat, bib overalls and a scowl on their face? I suppose if playing Pictionary and my topic was television, I would definitely draw an old box TV with two V-shaped antennas (not a flat screen) Nostalgic image… I get it. 

If I ever became an author of a children’s farm book, my main character will sport dirt-covered, holes-in-the knee blue jeans, college T-shirt, and seed corn hat with red Gatorade in hand.  Just saying. 

A recent video on You Tube called “Farm It Maybe” parody to "Call Me Maybe"  displays a young farmer doing what he loves: working on a dairy farm.  My favorite verse of his song: 

"Yeah, I'm a Farm Boy

And here's my Holstein

It's just a heifer

It has no baby"

Great job representing agriculture in a fun and educational way littlefred2008!

Let’s go back to my list.  It’s only 10 books long, and my goal is 50.  I need some help here.  What’s your favorite ag-related kids’ book?  

I’ll keep adding books to my list… and when we get to #50 there will be a prize involved (meaning G will get a new book for his library… and so will someone else).  Stay tuned!

Lauren

Hopping Through the Pages

We read backwards.  We skip from Page 1 to Page 14, back to 3.  Upside down.  In the bathtub.  Sometimes the book becomes a monster and “chomps”.  With a quick close of the cover, the book puffs air in faces.  (Guaranteed giggle-maker)    

My favorite is snuggling together on the brown, leather couch arms encircling my little boy.

Daddy goes on sidebars when he reads to G.  Maybe the first page truly comes from the book in hand, and then they take off on some story tangent from outer space. 

Books are fun. 

Do pages get ripped and chewed?  --Oh yes.   Some of our beloved books look like half-eaten BLT’s.  I swear Sandra Boynton board books construct their pages with bacon-flavored goodness.

We keep most G books at eye level on the big book shelf.  We slip the “special” keep-me-nice books, up real high.  We don’t read every night, but often G grabs a book, walks over, and hands it to me as if to say “Hey, read this one to me.  I’ll take off and play across the room, but I’m still listening momma.”

Author Jill Stamm in her book Bright from the Start says, “The sheer amount of words spoken to a child from birth to three has a direct impact on later testable IQ.” 

Stamm goes on to write: “ Just as with being talked to, being read to helps “tune” individual bundles of neurons in a critical part of the growing brain, which will make your child better able to learn to speak and one day read himself.”  

Basically this book says read, and read often.  Easy enough.

Children's literacy advocate, Jen Robinson, posts a Ten Tips for Growing Bookworms on her blog.  I really like her #10.

I remember the first time I saw my little guy reach for a book.  Pick it up. Open. 

“BA BA… BA BA BA”, his sweet 6-month-old mouth yelps.  Just like momma reads out loud. This is the moment I knew all my early reading times, where G blank stared at me (Momma, why are you reading those funny words to me?) were totally worth it. 

Weeks later:   In Babies R Us, Grandma carting G through the baby-gate aisle, G excitedly points at the large Australian shepherd displayed on the packaging.  His first communication of knowing what a dog is. With help from many renditions of Doggies by Boynton, we know a doggie barks.  We know 10 different ways a doggie barks.  And at the end of the book, we know what all those doggies are barking at…. a cat!  (Sorry, plot spoiler)

Tonight after bath time, I might just grab one of those delicious Boynton books.. maybe Moo Baa La La La.  Those three pigs make this grown-up smile.

What books are you reading tonight in your home?

Lauren