What We're Reading

Our stack is a little smaller this week because I knew we'd be focusing on activities to go along with the all these rain books. There are really only three (at the bottom) that aren't rain related. Top to bottom:

Just a Thunderstorm by Mercer Mayer

Just a Rainy Day by Mercer Mayer

Who Likes Rain? by Wong Herbert Yee

I Love the Rain by Margaret Park Bridges

It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw

The Rain Came Down by David Shannon

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema Waiting Out the Storm by JoAnn Early Macken

Raindrop, Plop! by Wendy Cheyette Lewison

One Rainy Day by M. Christina Butler

Dinosaur Deals (Mathstart Level 3) by Stuart J. Murphy

Beep Beep, Vroom Vroom! (Mathstart Level 1) by Stuart J. Murphy

Red Truck by Kersten Hamilton

These Mathstart books by Stuart J. Murphy were a great find! They are stories of interest to Will with a great math element in each. The Level 1 book about cars involves making/finding patterns. And the Level 3 book about dinosaurs introduces Will to values and balancing in a barter system involving dinosaur trading cards. I.e. the oldest brother is interested in acquiring a T. Rex trading card and the girl that's willing to make the trade wants three Allosaurus cards in exchange. The boy has only one Allosaurus card and Will announced to me (on his own): "Then he needs TWO more!" So he goes around to other tables looking for someone willing to make trades for allosaurus cards and has to forfeit some triceratops and other cards to get to his goal. The entire branching system of the final trade is a little lengthy for Will to follow, but it's a great way to introduce this concept of things having value and also understanding beginning addition and subtraction. If I have two cards and I need four to make a trade, then I need two more cards.

I had hoped to do a little more story extensions with this book. I thought it would be fun to do race car painting like we'd done in the past (rolling matchbox cars through paint and onto paper) and then practice some patterning with Will's matchbox cars, but we only got to the latter idea. Also, Will didn't have many yellow cars, so he used orange in place of yellow in several spots.

This week, we're reading books that are all about SPRING!