Joyful Abode

Chances are, you know a young girl. And chances are, at some point, you’ll want to buy or make her a gift. Well, one girl I know is my adorable niece, Dorsey. She’s in first grade, and is reading like CRAZY. Seriously, I showed her my (handwritten, scribbled, partially crossed-out and edited) rendition of a holiday song, and in seconds she was giggling. I didn’t think she could have possibly read it in that time, but she had! She read it out loud to me with no hesitation when I asked her to.
In any case, the girl is a reading machine.

For Christmas, I decided to get her The Daring Book for Girls, which is awesome. If you haven’t seen it before, check out the link. You can read part of it at the amazon.com website. It covers all sorts of girlie topics, like 14 games of tag, making daisy chains, spying, sleep overs, building a campfire, and wayyyy more.

A book by itself isn’t much fun to open at Christmas when you’re 6 years old, no matter how fun it is when you’re reading it, so I decided to make her a girl kit with some of the essential gear listed in the book.

I found the little papier mache suitcase box at Jo-Ann, took it home, and painted it. Then I filled it with a bandanna, some rope, duct tape, a whistle, and a compass. If the girl you’re gifting to is a bit older, a pocket knife would be a great addition.

So back to the reading thing. I thought that this would be a book Dorsey would need to go through with her mother (my sister). Instead, within minutes, she was reading one of the pages seemingly effortlessly.  Very amazing. Go Montessori education! Of course, I’m sure my sister will still go through the book with Dorsey.
Think she liked it?