You Wanted to Know, Part Deux

Look! I found a collage from a while ago with BOOKS and CAKE in it. Practically meant for this post.

Did you catch the I Love the 90s reference? Anyone? Or am I the only one who spent too much time in college watching VH1 instead of going to class?

Quirky Bookworm is exactly two years old today, hooray! Thanks for celebrating with me as I discussed my most popular posts, surveyed you about your blog-reading habits, shared the answers to the first half of your questions in You Wanted to Know, Part One, and spilled Survey Results (and then nagged you to quit reading bad books, ha!).


On to your questions for me...

 

Several people, including Cheryle, wanted to know, "Why did you decide to start a blog?"

There were a couple of reasons - but mainly the fact that I am a very talkative person. I love reading, and I love talking about reading, and I knew that once I quit working in a bookstore I'd need a venue to be able to blather about books.

On average, how much time do you devote to working on your blog each week?

I'd say each post takes 30ish minutes. And I write 3 - 4 a week. Plus tweeting about posts, editing images, answering comments, etc, maybe 3.5 hours on an average week. But then there are things like my "Reviews A - Z" page which I periodically have to update. Ahem. (By periodically I mean every six months or so... I really need to carve out a few extra hours to get that done pre-baby!)

Is it faster to read multiple books at one time or to just focus on one at a time? Or do you think it pretty much evens out?

For me, I definitely read much, much faster when I'm reading more than one book at a time. See this post for more of an explanation.

What are your top strategies for teaching phonics and/or sight words?

Honestly? I have no strategy. I need one though, because Eleanor will insist that "U says uh" and put a U in the middle of a word, when really it happens to be an O in that word, etc.

What are your favorite educational DVDs for preschoolers?

You can't go wrong with Super Why! for reading, and I'm also a big fan of Little Einsteins for including geography and classical/ artistic stuff. And I've been teaching Eleanor some French, and made a YouTube playlist of French videos that she loves to get to watch. Feel free to borrow it!

 

Do you use a reading lamp for before-bed reading? 

Nope. I just have a regular lamp on my nightstand, because I rarely read before bed, or else I'm up all night.

Have you read any good books about childbirth, breastfeeding, and/ or baby care?

*Insert guilty face here*. I remember reading that shushing book before Eleanor was born, but otherwise, not so much. I actually purposely didn't read too much about childbirth, because otherwise I got a little freaked about the whole thing, not gonna lie. And thankfully Eleanor took to breastfeeding right away... what I would've needed was a weaning book! Silly kid was almost two before I finally got her to give it up.

I wasn't too worried about baby care, since I'm the oldest of five siblings (and the other four are quite a bit younger than I am), so I already had tons of baby experience. So to make a long story short, nope, I'm more of a text-a-friend-for-advice kind of a mom. Ironic for a bookworm, non? But - I have heard really great things about Spirit-Led Parenting by Megan Tietz and Laura Oyer.

Got any great childbirth / baby book recommendations?

How do YOU teach sight words?

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