Book Love

This week our books of the week are A Squirrel's Tale... and There's a Mouse About the House!

However, I have to say, "Don't buy these books!"

Why?

Well, for one thing, when you are trying to get ready to go to a barbecue and you are telling your children to get their shoes and helmets on, they will be so engrossed in these books that they won't even hear you. When it's time for bed, they'll want to stay up long after the lights have been turned out to read these books. Finally, they will want to share these books with their friends. And show them to everyone who comes to your house. (I know from experience, these things have all happened to us.)

I don't actually mind the fact that the kids want to read these books over and over again. They are both very cute stories with a little animal that slides through holes in each page and pops out on the next page. They teach my kids important things like we read from left to right, we only turn one page at a time, and prepositional phrases (the mouse goes under the door, the squirrel goes out the window).

I don't even mind if my kids lose the little animal because Usborne thought ahead and provided a pattern to trace on the back of the book. That was smart.

But I'm telling you, if you want books that your child is going to carelessly toss aside, these are not your books. If you want your child to watch TV instead of read books, don't buy these! However, if you want a book that your child will love over and over again and maybe even want to carry around with him/her all the time and bring with you wherever you go, then these books will fit the bill.

You have been warned! Don't blame me when they learn to love to read!

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Book of the Week: How Big is a Million?

Our book of the week is How Big is a Million? There is a good reason I chose this one for our Dinosaur Week: it gives kids a better grasp of what it means to say that something happened millions of year ago. You can think of it like math for Dinosaur Week.

My son and I had a great time reading this cute book. It is the darling story of a penguin named Pipkin who goes on an adventure to find his million. First he finds ten fish. Then one hundred penguins. Then a thousand snow flakes. Discouraged, he comes home to his loving mother who shows him a million stars in the night sky. The book comes with a poster that measures 3 ft. x 4 1/2 ft. It literally has one million tiny dots on it that look like stars.

This is one tiny corner of the poster. Look at all those stars!

Sometimes it's really hard for kids to grasp the idea of what big numbers mean. Having something visual for them to count and compare makes this abstract idea mush more understandable. Overall, two thumbs up for How Big is a Million? for teaching math concepts with a really sweet story.

Pipkin on his adventure looking for his million.

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