Sunday, April 15, 2012

A Love For Books

I LOVE books. I love the library, I love the bookstore, I love my Kindle. Ok, you get the picture. I'm so thankful my mom instilled in me a love for reading. I remember reading a lot of books and going to the library as a kid. It's only natural that Beemer seems to be taking on the same interest.

Here he is at Target the other day, he sat on the floor for about 20 minutes looking at Superhero books. He even laid down for a few minutes. I think we'll do this again. It was really nice to browse the books while he remained occupied (minus my little bit shrieking her head off over every little thing).



I decided I wanted to try reading a chapter book to him, since he does such a great job of listening to books. My husband's sweet Aunt was very kind to give tips for preschool reading. She is a retired Kindergarten and First Grade Teacher. She said that picture books are really important to their learning at this point in life. She also sent me a list of her favorite books and authors which I'll list for you below.



So, we made a trip to the library today. We checked out a few books, came home and read all but one of them, a couple of them twice. I fully intend to turn them a week before they're due, late fines would be pretty steep on that many books!

Here are a few tips from Aunt M:
  • Make them understand that the words on the page tell a story that relates to the picture
  • They should be learning where the top of the page is, which direction the words go, that you read left to right, where the words are vs where the pictures are
  • In teaching letters, associate the letter with something they know. Start with letters that have strong associations (M for Mommy, D for Daddy, letter for their first name, etc.)
  • Get a wordless picture book so that they can tell YOU the story. I found multiple on Amazon by searching for Wordless picture books for children.

Here's a list of favorites from Aunt M:
  • "Where's Spot?" by Eric Hill (or any of the Spot books)
  • "No, David, No", "David Goes to School" by David Shannon (or anything by David Shannon) *If you get this, be sure to read the opening about the inspiration for "David Goes to School", it's very cute.
  • "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom", "Chicka Chicka 1 2 3" by John Archambault
  • "Brown Bear Brown Bear What do You See", "Polar Bear Polar Bear What do You See" by Bill Martin, Jr (Eric Carle illustrated) *I like reading these with Beemer because it's really easy for him to read these back to me. We also have the Brown Bear game and it's probably the easiest game I've played with a 3 year old.
  • "Freight Train" by Donald Crews (or anything else by Donald Crews) *Beemer really enjoyed this one, it is such a simple book with a strong correlation from the words to the pictures.
  • "Farm Alphabet" by Jane Miller
  • "Miss Spider's ABC's" by David Kirk
  • "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" by Richard Scarey
  • "Ten Apples Up on Top" by Theo LeSieg
  • "Go Dog Go" by P. D. Eastman
  • "Are You My Mother" by P. D. Eastman
  • "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", "The Very Busy Spider" by Eric Carle (anything by Eric Carle ) *one of our all time favorite books to read is From Head to Toe, it has the kids do actions for each page and it's a lot of fun
  • "Rosie's Walk" by Pat Hutchins (or anything by Pat Hutchins)
  • "The Napping House", "Quick as a Cricket", "The Big Hungry Bear" By Audrey Woods ( or anything else she writes)
  • "One Fish Two Fish", "Cat in the Hat, "Green Eggs and Ham". Or any of the easy repetitive books by Dr Suess
  • "Clifford" books by Norman Bridwell
  • "Jamberry" by Bruce Degan
  • "I Stink" by Kate and Jim McMullan
  • "Good Night Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown ("Runaway Bunny" is a very sweet book too)
  • "Is Your Mama a Llama? Or anything else by Deborah Guarino
  • "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" or anything by Laura Numeroff
  • "Knuffle Bunny", "Don't Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus" Or anything else by Mo Willems (His illustrations are so stinkin' cute and I love the way typography)
  • "Where the Wild Things Are". By Maurice Sendak
Other authors
  • David McPhail
  • Leo Lionno
  • Jim Ayelsworth
  • Kevin Henke
  • Arnold Lobel
  • Ezra Jack Keats
  • Mem Fox
  • Lois Ehlert
  • Frank Asch

Other:

  • Color Books
  • Number books
  • ABC books
  • Shape books
  • All of the above can be made yourself, she highly recommended doing that from your home printer and putting it into a folder with brads.
Here's Beemer outside the library, poking the man in the eye. He also pet his dog, which was "precious".

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