Keep on Wondering!

One of the beautiful thing about spending time with children is seeing the world through their eyes - their amazement, curiosity and wonder is inspiring. How Big is a Million? by Anna Milbourne has a little penguin wondering about this mysteriously large number, 'a million.'

Pipkin takes off one day to find out how big one million really is, but while he finds some other big numbers - one hundred, one thousand - he comes home at the end of the day disappointed that didn't find one million. His mother has a good answer though (of course!), and a beautiful surprise ending. Let's just say my daughter's jaw dropped when we opened the huge poster that comes at the end of the book.

How Big is a Million? is fun to read at home and would also be great to have in a preschool classroom, on the shelf and for a group read!

Other fun 'How' books:

Pleasing a crowd (big or small)

What is it about animal sounds that just gets children's attention? Whether it's singing songs in the car to keep everyone happy or reading books, animal sounds are crowd pleasers!

It can be difficult to find books that both my almost three year old and one and a half year old will set through together (even though they both *love* books). But now that we have The Gooble Gooble Moooooo Tractor Book by Jez Alborough, I can be assured that I will have their undivided attention from beginning to end.

We are already fans of Jez Alborough from his book, Hug, which has a limited vocabulary and yet wonderfully expresses, even for a toddler, the emotions of a little chimp looking for his mommy. The Gobble Gobble Moooooo Tractor Book is of a very different style. Yet once again, Mr. Alborough has managed to create a story that speaks directly to young children.

While Farmer Dougal is asleep, his animals make their way over to his tractor, which Sheep has commandeered. They each contribute their own noise to mimic tractor sounds, such as Mouse's "squeak, squeak, squeak" for the turning of the wheels and Cow's "Mooooooo" for... well, you'll just have to read it to find out as apparently that is the most hilarious part! Sheep is always worried that they will wake Farmer Dougal up with their raucous, but the animals say "Pleeeease" so sweetly, Sheep gives in. But then what happens when Farmer Dougal DOES wake up??

The pictures are colorful and the animals faces are so expressive. This book is sure to be enjoyed by all young children!

Books are about more than just words!

I think I'll start with a book that my two girls have been enjoying for the past few days -

There's a Mouse About the House by Richard Fowler follows the antics of a little mouse as he scurries around the house looking for food. The book comes with a little mouse, tail and all, that children slip through a slot in each page, following a dotted line to the next slot. He goes under doors, up a nightshirt, and appears under flaps on his way to the pantry, startling everyone he comes across. While the text is only somewhat catchy, it narrates the path, helping to guide little hands.

What the kids don't realize (or I at first!) is that they are working on some important skills here!
1. Slipping the mouse through the slots takes some fine motor skills (such as is needed for wielding a pencil, crayon, or paint brush), as does following the dotted line. [Draw some dotted lines on a paper for your pre-school age children to follow with a pencil or crayon. It can be a lot of fun and is a great pre-writing activity!]
2. The dotted lines go from left to right, also a pre-writing and pre-reading skill builder (for most languages).
3. It's important to turn only one page at a time or the mouse will be nowhere to be found!

So I'll let my kids think they are just having fun as they 'read' this book over and over again. And when the little mouse gets worn from all his scurrying, there are directions on the back of the book for making a new one!

Visit my Usborne Shop to buy this book!