Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in san francisco, CA

Reading Before Bedtime

by Michael Rohde

June 29, 2009

Books seem to be such an easy, no-brainer, go-to item when it’s time to settle down and go to bed. But sometimes the simplest things are the easiest to forget. Take my family for example…

We easily fell into a routine of picking the kids up from school, letting them play while we made dinner, eat dinner, watch a DVD for 45 minutes, take a bath, read a book for 5 minutes, then put them to bed. That worked for awhile and the bedtime slowly crept from 7pm to 7:30 to 8. Then the routine fell apart and the kids stopped easily going to bed. There was much screaming and yelling. We didn’t know what to do. This went on for weeks and gradually the situation got worse and worse. There was a time we could go back into their room when the crying started, tell them to lay down, rub their back, and they would go right back to sleep. At the height of our problem, they wouldn’t even lay down anymore, especially our daughter. She would look at us with tears streaking down her cheeks, her face would scrunch up, and she would cling to us like the boogey-man himself was standing behind our shoulder. It was awful.

We had to do something about it. My family firmly believes in routine, so that’s the first thing we examined: what worked before, what are we doing different, and what does not seem to work any longer. The first thing we did was eliminate the 45 minutes of watching DVDs after dinner. Now, we get down on the floor and either play ball, build Legos with Little People, or we color. Next, we announce it is bath time and that’s exactly what we do. After the jammies are on, it’s book time.

We read three or four books every night. There’s a book about a bus with wheels that go round and round, there’s a book about a group of animals that like to balance apples on their heads, there’s another about a bird who’s lost his Mom, and yet another about a baby dolphin and his Mom who teaches him several facets of dolphin life. I could go on and on but I think you get the point: we read lots of books on lots of subjects. We even have a book about twins living in San Francisco that covers all the touristy spots they visited; but that was put away, we are not sure exactly where, but it’s got to be around here somewhere…

The routine of reading before bedtime is helping us as parents to teach our kids new words, it provides a nice cool-down period, and it’s also an opportunity for us to give our kids encouragement and praise for saying words, which doesn’t happen very often from watching TV. And an excellent side benefit is that it seems to help them go to sleep a little easier. All-in-all, reading before bedtime is a win-win situation.

Books I Never See On Other People's Shelves

by Graham Charles

January 29, 2009

Here in the relative anonymity of the Internets, I can finally admit: I spy on other people's bookshelves. I always have, even before I had kids, and even two or three times stopped dating someone because of what I found in their libraries. More often, though, I used the reading lists of friends and people I respected as a method to guide my own future book choices. And so too do I for  Read more...

Get Your Ox On! Or, Happy Lunar New Year

by Graham Charles

January 26, 2009

Although your kids will be taking high school astronomy before they can explain the timing of the Chinese lunisolar calendar to you, even preschoolers can get into the celebration. Apart from next weekend's parade -- which is not to be missed, and is even worth pushing bedtime by an hour or so -- there are Chinatown festivals and street fairs aplenty from today (the actual new year's day) for  Read more...

Writing Books with Your Child

by Graham Charles

January 07, 2009

The second-best thing about parent blogging is joining a community of parents with whom to share ideas. (The best is creating a tangible record with which to embarrass your child in later life. But I digress.) I was feeling pretty proud of my idea to have even pre-verbal kids write their own thank-you notes -- it made the Savvy home page even ! -- when I was humbled by this even more  Read more...

"That's so last year!": A Savvy December Recap

by Graham Charles

January 05, 2009

The end of the month exploded so quickly that I never got a chance to recap December's Savvy highlights. Much of the month, it seems, was taken up with reviewing toys (and toys again ) and books (and books again ), for what I'm sure are obvious reasons. (Who doesn't like toys and books?) Holiday posts abounded, but a few stand out as applicable year-round: how to write thank-you notes with  Read more...

Winter Book Reviews, part II

by Graham Charles

December 04, 2008

The Savvy Moms-in-Chief have asked us to take a look at some of our favorite books over in the Books section of the national site; here are my first five favorite books and what I had to say about them. Want more? Click on the "Books, Toys, and More" link above. Madeline , by Ludwig Bemelsman Madeline is a great role model -- a brave heroine who bends the rules just a little and then  Read more...

Cable Car Lit: San Francisco Essential Kids Books

by Graham Charles

November 26, 2008

In keeping with this month's book theme, today I review my daughter Fern's favorite books about San Francisco. The Adventures of Sasha: The San Francisco Sea Lion Sasha is one of Pier 39's sea lions who takes a trip around the city's sights, especially the edible ones. My daughter prefers this to the other San Francisco books because, I think, the titular sea lion has got an excess  Read more...

Winter Book Reviews

by Graham Charles

November 24, 2008

The Savvy Moms-in-Chief have asked us to take a look at some of our favorite books over in the Books section of the national site; here are my first five favorite books and what I had to say about them. Want more? Click on the "Books, Toys, and More" link above. Flotsam , by David Weisner Let me respectfully disagree with your age range -- my daughter loved this book from about the  Read more...

Comics for the Pre-Verbal: Reviewing the New Toon Books

by Graham Charles

November 19, 2008

Like every kid, my 2-year old Fern has been trained to identify images that are meant for kids. She can easily delimit the tiny toy shelf at the drug store and on the bookshelf, she can find a kids' book easily by nothing the garish colors and cartoonish faces. But in our society of adult children, there are many bright and shiny images that are not meant for children, especially in the vast  Read more...

Fern's Favorite Funny Kids Books

by Graham Charles

November 18, 2008

Whenever my near-three-year old daughter Fern (or anyone else, for that matter) tells me that I'm funny, my stock response is: "Funny-'ha, ha' or funny-weird?" Because there are two distinct "funnies" and though my preference is by far the latter -- funny-weird, as in "What a funny outfit your daughter is wearing today!" -- I think both deserve their spot in the sun. So when the folks at  Read more...

Six San Francisco Locales for Inspiring Your Child's Imagination

by Graham Charles

October 14, 2008

The folks at Savvy headquarters have asked us this "List Tuesday" to describe some local spots that really inspire kids to creative, free-form imagination. We all love our museums and zoos, but sometimes kids need a little more undirected, unrestricted space. Here are some of my favorite "Imagination Zones": 1. The Beach. I know of few free-form, fully pliable environments that equal the  Read more...

Garden Stories and Walk this Sunday at the Botanical Garden

by Graham Charles

September 05, 2008

The San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum has long been one of my favorite spots to take Fern. At first, it was just a pleasure to find a section of Golden Gate Park that was free of dogs. Not that we don't like dogs -- we love 'em -- but when they're about, I find myself never quite able to relax, since every so often an unfortunate, poorly-trained pooch will take off  Read more...

Savvy Books: Jumpy Jack and Googily

by Mike Adamick

July 23, 2008

We've become big fans recently of a very nervous little snail and his enormous -- some one would say monster-like -- companion. Jumpy Jack the snail, you see, is very afraid of monsters, and with every new encounter, he makes the rotund Googily peer under pools or into tool sheds to determine whether any monsters are lurking nearby. You've probably read better tales and there are certainly books  Read more...

Savvy Books: Masters at work

by Mike Adamick

July 14, 2008

We're big fans of the Chronicle Books collection of contemporary and Impressionist art work geared toward toddlers. From Monet to Warhol, the "Mini Masters" books pair classic paintings with ... um ... occasionally impressive bursts of poetry but basically filler to show off the works in easy-to-handle book form. Still, they're awesome. We have them all. Just try taking Thiebaud from Emmeline's  Read more...

Story Time: Free Library Lap Sits

by Mike Adamick

June 10, 2008

I'm sure most everyone in the city is familiar with infant-toddler lapsits -- they are so perfect, engaging and free that everyone must already know, right? But just in case you happen to have a newborn in the house, are new to the city or are just thinking, "Hmmm, I'd really like something else to do today" -- let me tell you about the lapsits. The San Francisco Public Library system hosts  Read more...

Reading Corner: A Favorite Chill Spot

by Mike Adamick

May 22, 2008

Every day when the kid wakes up from a nap, she insists on reading almost every book in her library. I am not joking when I say that I told her one time that Santa Claus was in the kitchen, because otherwise, she would have read until bed time. Sure, it was a little cruel, but the kid's got to eat! If there are book worms, she is a book anaconda -- devouring them for hours at a time. Thankfully  Read more...