What We're Reading

I found a handy new tool for good book ideas! Our Scholastic Book order form! Haha. :) Okay, it's not really genius, but I was pouring over Will's first preschool order form a couple weeks ago and realizing how giddy I was that book orders were back in my life again. I LOVED Scholastic Book orders when I was in school. Or those days that they'd have a huge book sale set up in one of the school rooms (library? cafeteria? I can't remember) and give students a chance to go down and shop for books. That was so super fun for me as a kid. I loved to read and would get so excited over getting new books. Oh! And do you remember Book-It? Where you'd earn points towards a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut for reading? Man I wish I had the free time to read more for pleasure these days... and that someone would reward me in pizza just for doing it. LOL ;)

So anyway. I did place an order, but instead of blowing a ton of money on books we'd never read before, I decided to just incorporate some of the ones that looked interesting into our library list! It turned out to be a great week of reading!

You can tell that several of the topics are "preschool-like teaching concepts"...
1. Career Day by Anne Rockwell. Hands down, Will's favorite. He requested this one multiple times daily and he had it nearly memorized. It talks about a Career Day at school where each child brought in a special guest to tell about what they do for a job. Will learned about some jobs he'd never heard of such as a crossing guard and later asked where the crossing guard was while we were in a parking lot somewhere. Haha. He also pointed out that his Aunt Kelly was a veterinarian too! And that Dora's mommy was a paleontologist (he can say that word!) just like Mrs. Madoff's special guest.
2. Words Are Not for Hurting by Elizabeth Verdick, the same author as Hands Are Not for Hitting. A part of her Best Behavior Series. I confess I never actually read this one to Will. Craig did, but it wasn't one Will requested, so it probably only got read once.

3. The Littlest Owl by Caroline Pitcher. Very sweet. Made me want to just scoop up that little owl and snuggle him. I don't know what is drawing me to these books about little animals that rise up and prove themselves, but it reminds me of The Littlest Dinosaur from our last bunch of books.

4. All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon. Winner of the Caldecott Honor Award. It was available in hardcover from Scholastic, but I just didn't want to spend $10 or $12 on a book we'd never read. So I borrowed it instead. It's really nice and the illustrations are wonderful.

5. My Body. A Little Scholastic board book. Just a very simple book that teaches body parts. In case you were wondering why I don't often borrow books for Sophie... she has definitely not read all the books we own (whereas Will has) and she is at the age where she appreciates repetition and dependable favorites (whereas Will likes more of a variety). So it'll probably be awhile before we are regularly choosing books for her level and interests.

6. Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Here's another one that was available in hardcover from the Scholastic order and it actually would have been a good purchase because Will loved it. Probably his second favorite behind Career Day. This book plays on an optical illusion. Is the image you see a duck or a rabbit? Each page incorporates a little something into the picture to make you think one way or the other and there is a little "debate" going on by two people who disagree. Very cute.

Check out the bar code on the back of the book! :) Will thought that was really funny.

7. Shades of People by Shelley Rotner. Here's a subject we've never really brought up before and Will has never asked about. I love how this book describes the many "shades" of skin. It says "not colors really, but shades". And at the back of the book there is a page with a bunch of kids hands all together. Will put his hand on top of that page and he has surprisingly dark (olive) skin for a Caucasian kid!

And finally, here is a DVD we borrowed that looked interesting to me about Sight Words. It was also available on the Scholastic order. I have really got to stop borrowing DVDs for the kids though. I've only done it twice and both times I've incurred a late fee because I forget that the allowed borrowing time is much shorter than with books. The other DVD we borrowed in the past was a couple episodes of Super Why. Thanks for that recommendation, Lisa! It's a very neat show!