Nursery Rhyme Numbers

As of late, my daughter recites the "One, two, buckle my shoe..." poem at least once a day.  Her Pre-K evaluation a few months ago said that she needed to work on recognizing written numbers.  Ah ha!  While D loves the rhyme and rhythm of her chant, I see it as a wonderful way to practice seeing how we write different numerals.  Yay for the book Big Fat Hen by Keith Baker!  This book does not feature a complicated story and is only slightly an elaboration on the poem itself.  However, the bright illustrations an engaging companion to speaking the nursery rhyme.  Moreover, my daughter gets to see every number she says in bold, bright font.  This is a cute book that works for younger siblings or friends, too.  However, for the pre-writers of the world, it also serves a purpose.

Books Battle Bullying

"Bibliotherapy" means that books can help people in specific situations.  Yeah, it is an academic term.  It has legitimate uses, though.  In this case, I want to talk about a book that helped my daughter when she was being bullied.  Some of the big kids ("school-agers") were saying mean things to her and calling her a "loser."  She said that it hurt her heart.  How horrible is it for a mama to hear this!  Of course, I talked with the daycare director about the situation.  Luckily, we also stumbled into a wonderful book for dealing with the issue.

I found a copy of The Cow That Went Oink by Bernard Most.  In it, farm animals laugh at a cow who says "oink" and at a pig who says "moo."  However, these two animals decide to teach each other the sounds that they know.  With much hard work and perseverance, they become the only "bilingual" animals on the entire farm!  I love the empowering message this has.  My daughter, though, took it one step further.  She kept telling the story where all the animals then started learning how to make different sounds. 

We also read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes.  She had read with her Pre-K class, too.  It is a classic for a reason.  The title character's long, floral name-- while deemed perfect by her parents-- earns taunts from several classmates.  Luckily, the awesome art teacher, Delphinium, restores Chrysanthemum's pride.  It is amazing what the positive effect of a mentor can be!  My daughter beams when she says how her name is also the name of a flower.

One of the Every Child Ready to Read 2 skills is "talking."  I like that these books give a springboard for important conversations.   

Adventures in Process

I grew up in theatre, so permanently emblazoned upon my brain is the phrase, A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end."  Acting teachers were pretty tired of scenes that lacked an end, I think.  Anyhow, the theatre where I grew up recently did a production of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie based on the book by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Felisha Bond.  My daughter definitely enjoyed it. 

This was several months ago.  Last night, we read If You Give a Dog a Doughnut by the same author-illustrator team.  She loved it, and I loved seeing her "get" how cause and effect works.  (It reminds me of the "if...then" statements in the BASIC language of computers, but I digress).  She proved her comprehension even more tonight when she started telling a story (showing off her--as Every Child Ready to Read 1 would call them-- "Narrative Skills) "If you give a llama a book."  I asked her questions to prompt along the tale, but her imagination carried it.  While, unlike the books in the Numeroff-Bond series, her story did not end where it began, I still enjoyed it.  More importantly, she did. 

Happy Year of the Dragon!

Last week, my daughter and I enjoyed a community Chinese New Year's celebration.  Due to the reading that we did before attending this arts & crafts event, she derived much more from the activities than she would have if we had gone without our biblio-prep.  (Is that a term?  I guess that it is now!)

The book, which bore repeated readings at D's prompting, is The Magic Brush: A Story of Love, Family, and Chinese Characters by Kat Yeh/ Illustrated by Huy Boun Lee.  In it, Jasmine is a Chinese-American girl whose grandfather, Agong, teaches her the art of Chinese calligraphy as she explores her imagination.  Each page features Chinese characters, and the end of the book has an extra section that includes a pronunciation key, history of Chinese art, and list of several Chinese treats.

The story itself is touching. ::Spoiler alert:: Although it does not say so concretely, it is pretty clear that Agong dies.  However, the tale also deals with this in a touching though not saccharin way. 

I love the connection between Agong and Jasmine as well as the way that she comes to transmit the values and culture he shared with her.  The bold, colorful illustrations that incorporate Chinese characters like an Asian WordWorld are also impressive.

Fractured Fairy Tales for the Preschool Set

I am back, readers!  Today, I want to speak up on behalf of traditional nursery rhymes and fairy tales.  I grant that there are some stories that are rather violent for young folk.  I'm not one for reading Grimm tales straight to my daughter.  However, having heard some of the general cannon not only leads to a sense of commonality, but it opens the doors for kids to enjoy fractured fairy tales.  (It is sort of like grammar, you only notice the broken rules if you've learned what the rules are.  In this case, though, the results are funny). 

So, here a couple of spoofs of traditional nursery rhymes and fairy tales that have amused both me and my daughter recently:

Detective Blue by Steve Metzger/ Illustrated by Tedd Arnold:  So, Little Boy Blue grows up to become a detective who seeks the missing Little Miss Muffet.  The cartoon style book give many opportunities for character voices.  The detective-style tale is adorable, and there are a multitude of funny details in the illustrations that make this a wonderful choice for re-reads.

Dragon Pizzeria by Mary Morgan:  D asked for this one several nights in a row.  Two dragons work together.  One makes the pizzas while saying nursery-rhyme knock-offs.  The other delivers the pizzas all over fairytale land.  Fairy tale characters order each pizza to specifications that match their story's situation.  The biggest treat for us was probably the map at the end that included everyone from the book.

Let's Play!

Playing is one of the literacy skills that Every Child Ready to Read, 2nd edition emphasizes.  Duh!  Kids love playing.  (So do grown-ups, for that matter).  I think, though, that I'll use this blog as an opportunity to recognize innovative books where reading them is a form of playing.

Last night, I read In My World by Lois Ehlert with my daughter.  Cutouts of various parts of nature layer over each other to yield an image that looks like Earth.  I think the moths were D's favorite part.  (Naming all of the different elements ties into the former version of Every Child Ready to Read's "vocabulary" focus).  It puts a message about environmentalism into a preschooler-friendly format.  Moreover, the clever shape overlays are just fun.

Another Lois Ehlert book was a huge hit when I took it with me on fall storytime outreach.  It is called Leaf Man.  The illustrations are all made from collages of different leaves and acorns, and the end-papers identify what types of foilage they are.  I used how many animals the tale mentions for the children to join me in making animal sounds (which ties into "phonological awareness" from ECRR version 1).  Again, the creative way of seeing ordinary objects in a unique was is fun.

Alphabet Antics

Aunt Linda, of blessed memory, loved ABC books.  She had a bookshelf specifically to house her collection.  However, not all alphabet books are created the same.  I want to introduce my daughter to a couple of my favorite ABC books.  In addition to our nightly singing of the alphabet song (with a stuffed animal pointing to the specified letters on a wall-poster), this will help her become more prepared to read and write on her own.

She enjoyed when I read Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten by Joseph Slate/ Illustrated by Ashley Wolff to her.  I want to check out more in that series.  The fact that each kindergarten student is an animal whose name and animal type begin with a different letter of the alphabet is great.  I also like the other early literacy aspects of the kindergarten room set-up (shapes in the blocks, numbers on the wall, etc).  The other book that I have put on request for her is Matthew ABC by Peter Catalanotto.  In this book, every child has the name "Matthew" and a quirk that starts with some letter of the alphabet, with all 26 being represented.  It is cute, and I know she'll meet kids who get differentiated by their last initial.

*If you have ABC books that are particularly awesome for you, please feel free to share in a comment.