Wolves in Children’s Books

Wolves seem to be in every other fairy tale that I read with my kids. I guess that when they were written, wolves were a real fearsome beast. Here are a few of my favorite stories that have wolves in them:

The True Story of the Three Little Pigs

I started a Scieszka/Smith collection before I even had kids because I really enjoy their writing and illustrating.  They love an interesting twist on a familiar tale.  I think my kids probably had this one read to them before any traditional tale of the three pigs.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Another book with a ton of versions out there.

Red Riding Hood

There are a ton of Red Riding Hood stories out there.  We like Lon Po Po and the Marshall version very well, but since I like Pinkney as an author as well, I thought I would remind others about his version.  I should probably pick this one up at the library next week.

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
Here is one in which the wolves are the ones who are treated poorly, while the pig is the bad guy. The kids enjoy this and so does Daddy.

By the way, do you know how to sign wolf? Animal signs are usually a pretty good visual description of the animal and easy to remember.

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ASL (American Sign Language)— books to assist the learning process

There is no way to learn any language from a book, and certainly not American Sign Language. However, there are some great resources to have on hand while you learn ASL. I will try to review a few here that I have purchased and recommend.

In no particular order, here are a few I own and like:

Teach Your Tot to Sign: The Parents’ Guide to American Sign Language

by Stacy A. Thompson (Author), Valerie Nelson-Metlay (Illustrator)

This book has the signs for the words that your toddler most wants to communicate with you. There are a couple signs that I found were different than what was described in other sources, but it seemed to mostly be due to regional differences. We started putting a check mark next to the signs we had learned in this book and soon checked off nearly everything because they were words that we needed to use in everyday communication with our youngest daughter. The book has drawings of the signs as well as descriptions of how the signs are made.

Signing Smart with Babies and Toddlers : A Parent’s Strategy and Activity Guide

by Michelle Anthony (Author), Reyna Lindert (Author)

Although I do not necessarily agree with some of the ideas in this book, I do like many of the activities given for practicing signs during everyday life with babies and toddlers. This book is part of a program that is offered in some areas of the country. I have not been involved with that. Sometimes, however, I would feel the need for another way to get language into my daughter’s brain and would pick some of the games and ideas from this book. The book’s main strength is giving ideas for games and activities to play with babies and toddlers to enrich the language of the child. I would not depend upon this book for learning signs, however. It has a very limited list of signs at the back of the book, which are black and white photographs of the signs, without much explanation.

The Gallaudet Dictionary of American Sign Language

This dictionary has drawings of the signs. Each sign may have a listing of several words that can be signed using the sign given. In addition, this book comes with a searchable DVD of over 3000 signs. Sometimes you really need to see someone do the sign, not just see a drawing or photograph. Since this dictionary is put out by Gallaudet, it says that the signs are the ones most commonly used in the DC region, which makes perfect sense for us since we live in the metro area.

Random House Webster’s American Sign Language Dictionary

I generally use this and the Gallaudet in conjunction when checking out a sign I need. This has line drawings as well as a written description of how to sign the word. It notes which part of speech it is discussing signing, which can be very helpful.

The American Sign Language Handshape Dictionary

I have not utilized this book as much as I would like so far. This dictionary has the signs placed in groups by the handshape. This way if you are a beginning signer, and you catch the handshape but do not know what the meaning of the sign, you can look it up. There is no way to do that in a traditional English alphabetical order sign language dictionary.

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Success….sign made with GIMP for ASL playgroup

I figured out how to play with layers in GIMP this evening and made a new sign for my ASL playgroup to post at church. Isn’t it funny how once you figure out one tiny piece of information about a program, suddenly you can do a million more things with it? For some reason, I had not figured out how to know which layer I was working with until I read through a GIMP tutorial. As soon as I saw how to show which layer I was working with, I did not need to look at the tutorial anymore to make my sign.

Now if only I can make my printer work with GIMP….it seems the printer we bought is not on its list of printers. I have informed my husband of this several times, but he keeps forgetting about it. I was hoping he would find a solution for me, but I may have to find one for myself.

We do have an older printer that I can use, but my sign just does not look that great after seeing it displayed on the screen and then seeing the print out….

I know my sign is pretty simple, but just the fact that I could start using GIMP for desktop publishing like I used to use several Windows based programs years ago makes me pretty happy tonight.

By the way, the girls in the sign are signing horse and cow.

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