I love it when a story has such real-life applications. If you have a young child, you need to read Little Beaver and The Echo to them. It is one of the sweetest stories on our shelves, and no matter how many times I read it, both of my children laugh and say how much they enjoy the story. My sister gave it to my daughter when she was just a baby. Let me tell you how it came to mean even more to us.

Over the Labor Day weekend we received an invitation to visit Lake Martin (which is in Alabama, for those of you not from the south). We had such a wonderful time. It was so relaxing to swim in the lake with our family. We saw lots of different types of birds, several deer, and, one morning, a turtle swimming under the dock.

During one of our swims (we had gone out pretty far) I was with GMan and we were just floating and chatting. I think I must have hollered something over to someone else and we heard my echo. GMan said "just like little beaver, mom" (you see, in the story little beaver hears his echo, but thinks it is another friend across the water. So sweet.) There is also a turtle in the story, and we had just seen a turtle earlier that day.

So, we had lots to talk about. It was fun to play with our real echoes and think about the story while we were floating in the water. We hadn't read the story in a few weeks, but when we got home guess which story GMan pulled out for me to read? That's right, Little Beaver and the Echo. (click on the link for some teaching ideas)

I LOVE homeschooling - because I can take a moment like this and capture it, then expand on it at our leisure. My children are beginning to see everything in relation to what we learn, and how cool is that? Life is their classroom, and I'm just their guide.
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