Feeding their imaginations

Part of my role in our family is to seek out the fodder for our imaginations.  I control the netflix queue, and do the library runs.  I read book reviews and chat with other parents about what their families are watching and reading.

Sometimes it turns out that something I got is not of interest to anyone.  That's fine too.  And sometimes the kids hear about something from their friends and ask me to get it for them.  And that's fine too, although sometimes I try to check it out a bit first.

Here's some of what they have enjoyed recently:

Apps


DragonVale is an iPhone app that Carbon heard about from a friend, and then he just had to have it.  The nice thing about these apps is that each one is pretty inexpensive so it's a low risk for me to buy them for the kids.  Carbon loves this one.


Movies


The Lord of the Rings is pretty violent and intense for the kids, but watched in the light of day in our living room they love Tolkien's world.  After we watched the movie, I got the dramatized radio plays on CD from the library and Carbon has been enjoying that at night in his room.  Hypatia can't follow the action on audio, so she's skipping that.  Carbon was inspired to make wire rings, and he wrote a short book about his rings and their own magical properties.


Audiobooks


The difference between a book on paper and an audiobook is The Voice.  Depending on the narrator, the book can be brought to life in amazing ways, and listening to these voices in our car is one of our favorite things.  Anne of Green Gables and Betsy Tacy have been giving us lovely gentle tales of girlhood and friendship, and before that Urchin of the Riding Stars gave us excitement and humor.  Andrew Sachs, the narrator of Urchin, is a familiar voice we've heard before and that the kids enjoy.


Read-Alouds

And then we read more books before bed.  The kids have been on a Bunnicula kick for the last six books, but now we're reading another Mistmantle book.  Can I match Andrew Sachs as a narrator?  No.  But now we get to see the cute little illustrations, so it has its compensations.

And I just have to add this because I LOVE it.