Last Week in 1 Quick Post

Monkey is 2 +4 months.

I was debating if I should do a post or not but we read a lot of great books so I wanted to do a REALLY quick post of just our reading with a little commentary on the books we read.






Last week (August 16th) we checked out this book and started reading it.  I've had a lot of people tell me that I shouldn't read chapter books to my toddler for whatever reason (I've had people give me long lists that just don't make much sense to me).  I have no problem with Monkey playing quietly with toys while listening to me read.  In fact, my fondest memories of elementary school come from teachers reading to me while I worked on something else quietly.  Some of my favorite books (well they became my favorite books) were read to me this way.  We've both really enjoyed Ralph S. Mouse and his motorcycle.







This is one of our favorites.  It's wonderful to help with counting which is something we've been kind of focusing on lately because Monkey has been counting from 1-10 but sometimes will skip 7 or 4.  We've also been introducing the concept of actually counting something concrete instead of just saying the numbers so he can learn to link those two concepts in his head.  I would highly recommend this book (and you sitting and counting each apple on each animal's head) when trying to teach this.








Monkey has been OBSESSED with hiccups lately.  Sometimes I have a hard time determining whether he has hiccups or if he's just pretending though he often gets them anyways.  I thought this would be a fun book to read with him and it was.  He got in to it and made the hiccuping noises with me as I read to him.









Monkey has always liked fish.  This was a really fun book about consequences and trying to teach young children to listen to those in authority or introducing them of how to care for pets.  A little boy goes to a pet store to buy a fish.  The pet store man says to only give him "this much" or else something would happen.  The boy felt bad for his fish when he got him home and decided to give him the whole container of fish food.  The fish kept growing and growing and kept growing out of bowls, pans, the tub, and so on.  We'll be checking this one out again for sure.  It certainly kept his attention.








Monkey also loves balloons and what two year old doesn't?  I vaguely remember liking this book as a child but it is quite wordy so if you're reading it to a toddler you may want to pre-read it and condense it (which is what we'll do in the future).  The pictures in this book are beautiful.  It was a fun book to read together.





Those were our very favorite books.  I will now list the others we read but without pictures.

Celebrating Birthdays in Brazil-This was a fun book to borrow from the library.  My husband lived in Brazil for two years and we have decided to teach our kids Portuguese (I still need to learn it too!).  We saw this one at story time at the library a couple weeks ago so we decided to check it out.  Birthdays in Brazil are quite similar to those in the U.S.  It was interesting learning about how other kids live though and I think as Monkey gets a little bigger he will appreciate books like this more.

Oscar, Me, and the Letter O (Alphabet Friends)-This is a pretty fun series (Alphabet Friends).  The books start out by showing the letter (both upper and lower case) and then it has a rebus story that your young toddler can follow along with.  We've now read at least 2 books in the series and I would recommend them along with the Sound Box series.

Pig Out! A Picture Reader with 24 Flash Cards (All Aboard Reading)-Like I've said before, we really like our Rebus readers.  It's really fun for Monkey to actually be able to read with me.  He's starting to learn that words are like pictures in that they are symbols.  He has a sense of satisfaction on his face after he completes each of these, that's why we checked out several of these to read:
Lots of Hearts (All Aboard Reading) (great for Valentine's Day)
Picky Nicky: A Picture Reader with 24 Flash Cards (All Aboard Reading)
In a Dark, Dark House (All Aboard Reading) (great for Halloween)
Space Kid (All Aboard Reading)
Who Stole the Cookies? (All Aboard Reading)

-on a side note...we own this one:



And it's Monkey's FAVORITE book.  He calls it "Who Me" and asks to read it every day.  Because this one is so fun for toddlers we didn't really like the All Aboard Reading version.






 Calling All Cats: All Aboard Picture Reader (All Aboard Reading)
Dog Wash Day: All Aboard Picture Reader (All Aboard Reading)  (this is one of our favorites now too-Monkey loves the dogs and the fact that they're getting a bath)







I forgot to add this in as one of our favorites of the week.  We really enjoyed this one.  Again, Monkey loves dogs but it was really fun to learn about opposites in this book.






Honey Helps-we've checked out another Honey book before and we really liked it.  These books are about a puppy and kitty that are friends.  In this book Honey (the cat) decides to help Happy (the dog) when he's trying to do dog things-including burying a bone.  It's a beginning reader and a great book to teach kids that even though things or people may be different they can still help each other even if they don't do everything the same.

Small Pig (I Can Read Book 2)-This was also a really fun book and we used it to kind of go along with the next one that I will list to identify the letter P/p and its sound.

My "p" Sound Box (Sound Box Books)-I mentioned this series above with the Alphabet Friends book.  I really like this series.  We've now read at least 3 of these books.  They are rebus readers and help teach kids about the letter and sound of the letter.  There's also suggestions for activities in the back of the book like in Alphabet Friends.  If your library has these they're really fun-check them out!

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