Episode 58: Pogona Vitticeps, Part 2

Click here to listen to: Pogona Vitticeps, Part 2 (23:45)

Admist tradgedy, Vivien learns the secret behind her visions 

and discovers she has a difficult decision to make. 

Hi All,

We want to send out a special thanks to our friend, Claire for introducing the second part of the Pogona Vitticeps for us. She did such a great job in her narration! Her father is a professional audiobook narrator and podcast host. He explained to us that while helping him record, Claire was bitten by the audio narration bug and wondered if she could do some narration of her own. The best way to learn how to do something is by practicing and we were happy to give Claire an opportunity to hone her skills. Keep up the good work, Claire. 

SPARKLING ANNOUNCEMENT

It’s been a busy year. Summer vacation is upon us. Mr. Chris and I have decided to take a small break for the summer from producing new Night Light Stories. We’re going to use that time to continue to submit stories to different publishers.

While we're away, we encourage you to go back through our 58 stories and re-listen to some of your favorites. Please tell others all about Night Light Stories while you're visiting with family, splashing in waves or waiting in line to ride a huge roller coaster.

We look forward to watching the glow grow brighter with the many stories we can share together. Have a great vacation everyone! We'll see you in the Fall.

VORACIOUS VOCABULARY

What did you say? A word of the day! In our story

there are many juicy words that are fun to use and say.

admire: to regard with wonder, pleasure or approval
elegant: gracefully refined and dignified
engulf: to swallow up in
portal: a door, gate, or entrance

JUST ADD IMAGINATION!

Try these activities to keep your imagination glowing

after hearing the story.

1. A pet name is a nickname or an affectionate name that someone calls you. For example, Vivien names her bearded dragon Pagona, but calls him Pogo for short. What is YOUR nickname? Type your nickname into http://metaatem.net/words to create something like this:

 

2. Take a picture of your pet and send it to us at nightlightstories@gmail.com or post it on our Facebook Page. 

3. Keep a journal (or blog!) this summer of all your fun adventures. Use it to document facts you have learned, trips you've taken and masterpieces you've drawn.

COMPREHENSION CHALLENGE

After listening to the story, can you recall the

details to answer these questions?

1. Who left Vivien the pendant?

2. What change happened to Pogo?

3. Where did Vivien's mother go with Noona when Vivien was three?

4. Why did Vivien have to go alone into the portal?
5. How did Vivien's latest vision help her?

We want to send out bright birthday wishes to:

Drew M from New York
Alex P of West Virginia
Catie P of Colorado
Alyse B of New York
Zoe of West Virginia
Molly D of Virginia
Luke of Texas 
Kim of the Musing Mommies Podcast

We hope your days SPARKLED!

Episode 45 (Flashlight): A Letter from a Leprechaun

Click the link to listen to: A Letter from a Leprechaun 

Top o' the mornin' to ya!

This flashlight episode contains a letter written by the leprechaun who escaped a clever leprechaun trap. As promised at the end of the story, here are the pictures of the mess that Seamus the Leprechaun made in our house.

VORACIOUS VOCABULARY

What did you say? A word of the day! In our story

there are many juicy words that are fun to use and say.

Bray: the loud, harsh cry of a donkey
Endeavor: to attempt; try
Peril: exposure to injury, loss, or destruction

JUST ADD IMAGINATION!

Try these activities to keep your imagination glowing

after hearing the story.

1. Learn how to make a traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner. Click the link and follow the detailed directions or watch the video! 

2. Watch these videos we made to explain how we were planning to catch a leprechaun this year!
The leprechaun trap explained by the 6 year old
The leprechaun trap explained by the 4 year old
No Leprechauns Allowed: A video for the leprechauns to watch

3. We hope to lure you into listening to our other stories that have

leprechauns or St.Patrick's Day mentioned in them. They are:

The Leprechaun Trap (6:35)
Two leprechauns are caught in a leprechaun trap 

and try to find different ways to escape.

Free audio download: The Leprechaun Trap
Blog with activities: The Leprechaun Trap

Red vs. Green: (22:21)

When a team of Christmas elves goes against a team of 

St. Patrick's Day leprechauns in the Holiday Hockey 

Winter Classic, who will win?

Free audio download: Red vs. Green

Blog with activities: Red vs. Green

The Spelling Bee (19:01)
A boy prepares for his shot at taking home the spelling bee 

championship. Will he succeed? 
Free audio download: The Spelling Bee
Blog with activities: The Spelling Bee

Clementine's Big Mess (16:05)

Clementine the cupid has lost his magical quiver. 

Can his friends help him find it?

Free audio download: Clementine's Big Mess

Blog with activities: Clementine's Big Mess

LIGHTING THE WAY WITH WORDS

These nutcrackers sit on our table throughout the holiday season and tell stories to our kids at dinner time.  They give gentle reminders to finish their dinner and to mind their manners. Even though they are manned and voiced by Mr. Chris, the kids completely ignore this fact. They bring lots of laughter and polite dinners to our house during a very hectic season. Do your children have a favorite holiday decoration or tradition that you have been doing over the years? We would love to hear about them!  You can post them in the comments, our Facebook Fan Page, or send them to nightlightstories@gmail.com.  

As always, we look forward to the many words we can share together.

Creating a Winter Wonderland!

"We need to make a Christmas scene for our wall." This quote from our son prompted the project we did today! It was a lot of fun, a little bit educational, and used some of our million craft materials that we have in our box!  So, what did we do?  We decorated the wall, of course!

First, we measured the wall to find out how much paper we needed. We decided to use pillows to measure rather than a ruler.  It was good practice using non-standard forms of measurement. 

We found the wall was four pillows long. We laid the pillows out on the butcher paper so we could cut the right amount to fit on the wall.

Of course, then he had to see how many pillows he was. He was two and three quarter pillows long!

We cut the butcher paper together to practice scissor skills and then we hung it up on the wall.

We decided to add a white hillside.

Then we decorated the mural with pictures we cut out from old Christmas cards we had saved, Styrofoam stickers, paper snowmen, google eyes, and any other treasures we could find in our craft box!

We colored, glued, and decorated!

My favorite thing that our five year old created on the mural was a reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh. Notice Santa riding in the pink sleigh!

Our finished product was colorful 

and had a touch of all of us on it. 

Most of all, it was great teamwork!

We would love to see your holiday creations that you make as a family!  Send them to nightlightstories@gmail.com or post them on our Facebook Fan Page!

As always, we look forward to the many family projects we can share together!

A Thanksgiving at Home

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. This Thanksgiving was a little more memorable for me though. For the first time in 10 years, we did not travel to our very snowy hometowns, attempt to travel and have to turn around due to weather in our very snowy hometowns, or clean up for company to come to the house for a Thanksgiving feast. The Night Light Stories household had Thanksgiving, just the four of us. We Skyped with our families who are as far away as Spain. I was thankful for the technology to be able to share this holiday with our family and friends.

We started off the day going out to our favorite breakfast spot!

We cheered and danced as the enormous floats of our favorite characters appeared on the TV screen.

We practiced setting the table and taught our friends about table manners.

Some of us peeled the apples and some of us taste tested the apples for our pie.

We cleaned out, washed, seasoned, and dressed the turkey.

We drove our virtual race car while we waited for the turkey to cook.

We sat together, just the four of us, and gave thanks for all our blessings!We would love to hear how you spent your Thanksgiving Day. Feel free to share with us on the blog or at nightlightstories@gmail.com.

EPISODE 14: The Patchwork Pumpkin, Part 2

Click here to listen to Part 2 of the Patchwork Pumpkin

Hello All,

We hope you enjoyed part two of the Patchwork Pumpkin. We plan on posting the pictures of our jack-o-lanterns this weekend after our "Carvefest" with the kid's grandparents. We would love to see yours as well! Send us a picture of how you are celebrating this time of year and we will post it for all to enjoy!

CONTEST CORNER

To help celebrate our 1st two part story, the Northern Virginia based band, Rocknoceros, generously offered their newest CD, PINK, as a prize for a contest. To enter, simply visit Rocknoceros' website and explore all around. Dance to some songs, check out their podcast, and read their bios. Then, come back to this post and leave a comment about what you found most interesting, fun, or inviting about this intriguing trio!

What did you say, a word of the day? That is right, in our story there are many illuminating words. Try and use them in your conversations this week!

awkward:lacking grace or ease in movement

exasperated:annoy extremely

flinch:to draw back or withdraw from

silhouette:the outline or general shape of something

COMPREHENSION CHALLENGE

After listening to the story, can you recall the details to

answer these questions?

1. What made Millie flinch in the hay loft?

2. Do you think Millie raked the leaves like her mom asked? What did she do with them?

3. Where was Millie's father before she showed him the scarecrow?

JUST ADD IMAGINATION!

Try these activities to keep your imagination glowing after hearing the story.

1. Make a list of things you could reuse around your house to make a scarecrow.

2. Visit Crayola.com's coloring website http://bit.ly/pwpump to create a picture from your favorite part in the story. Send it us at nightlightstories@gmail.com and we will post it for all to enjoy.

3. Carve your own digital pumpkin at http://www.puffgames.com/pumpkincarving