Weekly Books… Spooky and Otherwise!

This is our first week joining in with Natalie from Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns. Here’s what we’re reading this week:

Bats at the Library written and illustrated by Brian Lies. What a beautiful book! The cover art on this book sucked me in at the bookstore today. I picked it up because the illustrations were incredible. I was pleased to see the great reviews on the book when we got home. I think this will quickly become a favorite for us because there’s so much to discover on each page.

Missing Mittens by Stuart J. Murphy. This book was recommended to me by Natalie of Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns. It’s a tale about even and odd numbers and a perfect complement to our current math studies.

Who’s Been Here? A Tale in Tracks by Fran Hodgkins. This one is due back to the library shortly and I may need to pick up a used copy for us. Tornado Boy asks to read this one every day. One of the things that I like about is that the story is pretty simple, but it lends itself to further discussion.

The Scary Sounds of Halloween. This one’s not really being read, but it is being played with a LOT! It comes with a voice recorder that allows you to record your own scary sounds. It’s fun hearing Tornado Boy with his rather high-pitched little boy voice practicing his scary sounds.

 
Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen by Howard Brinkow. I love this book as much as Tornado Boy does. The story is cute – and very appropriate for my own little Wigglebottom. My favorite part is the list of good ways to be a good listener at the end of the book.  It is making a positive impact on our household.

Speaking of reading, I had an interesting experience the day that I pulled Tornado Boy out of preschool. His teacher told me that he had a really hard time sitting and listening during story time. I wasn’t all that surprised by that given the fact that he has boundless energy and library storytimes were never very successful for us. What did surprise me was the way that she asked. “I thought you said that you read a lot a home”. I told her that we read several times a day every day. She looked a little lost and told me of the hard times that she was having with him talking during the story, etc. It dawned on me that I probably greatly contributed to her problems at school. More often than not, Tornado Boy is on my lap when we read, and it’s a very interactive process. We talk about the story, the characters, the punctuation and whatever else strikes our fancy. I never really thought about the ramifications of that in another environment. Ah, well – his teacher could have told me WAY before she did and we could have tried some strategies (à la the Howard book) to address it. The last day of school – well, not so much!