Le Books

DIY Preschool Jet Pack--with Bonus Cardboard Rocket!

My friend Nina S.G. gets 1,000 mom points for hosting a birthday party where all the kids got jet packs made from bottles, duct tape, elastic bandages and colored cellophane. Plus this giant cardboard rocket to play inside--so awesome! We may have to make our own at home. Thank you Nina and happy birthday A&L!

Books for Three-Year-Olds: Our Read-Aloud Record for 2013

I. READ-ALOUD RECORD (2013): FIRST NOVELS AND LONGER SELECTIONS

“Let me give you an idea of how widespread the misunderstanding is about the difference between listening [level] and reading level, as well as the magic that can occur when they are understood. About twenty years ago I was doing an all-day seminar in a blue-collar community on the Jersey Shore. At lunch, a young teacher named Melissa Olans Antinoff introduced herself and said, ‘You’d love my kindergarten class!’ She explained that she read one hundred picture books a year to the class, but also read ten to twelve chapter books...When the seminar resumed after lunch, I asked how many kindergarten teachers were in that room and learned there were eight. Further investigation showed that Antinoff was the only one who read chapter books to her class. Which of these eight classes will be better prepared for first grade: the ones who heard 150 four-minute picture books, or the one that heard one hundred picture books along with a dozen novels? Which class will have the longer attention spans at the end of the year and larger vocabularies, and exercise more complex thinking?” --Jim Trelease, The Read-Aloud Handbook,(7th edition, Penguin, 2013), p. 59.

D'Aulaires' Book of Trolls	D’Aulaire, Ingri & Edgar Palin
Jenny and the Cat Club: A Collection of Favorite Stories about Jenny Linsky	Averill, Esther
Little House in the Big Woods	Wilder, Laura Ingalls		August
Little House on the Prairie	Wilder, Laura Ingalls
Mr. Popper's Penguins	Atwater, Richard & Florence
Stories for Under-Five-Year-Olds	Corrin, Sara and Stephen		November
Finn Family Moomintroll	Tove Jonsson		Done 11/25. J points at doghouse-sleeping Snoopy on my T-shirt: “Mom, that looks like a Moomin!” Bonus read: Who Will Comfort Toffle? by Tove Jonsson
Little Tim Collection	Edward Ardizzone		Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain, plus: 1. Tim & Ginger 2. Tim in Danger 3. Tim’s Friend Towser
Three Tales of My Father's Dragon	Ruth Stiles Gannett		1. My Father’s Dragon 2. Elmer and the Dragon 3. Dragons of Blueland

II. READ-ALOUD RECORD (2013): THE BEAST FABLES AND INTRODUCTORY AESOP

“To begin with, [three] is a suitable time to introduce the first fairy stories. The three-year-old seems prepared to accept the ‘other-world’ quality of these earliest tales (the ‘Beast Fables’ they have been called, appropriately). I would suggest for a start The Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, The Gingerbread Man (hardly a beast, but of the same ilk), The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Little Red Hen. These have in common features which render them suitable for the child whose contact with stories has so far been confined to simple, progressive narratives and straightforward cause-and-effect tales...It is important to note the difference between these stories and the more sophisticated tales, such as Jack and the Beanstalk and Snow White. The ‘Beast Fables’ help children to move into an imaginary world which is quite unlike their own, but whose qualities are universal. The characters are often in peril, but the child who comes to know that they will emerge unharmed in the end if they are courageous and wise. The rules are rigid; the first two Little Pigs were eaten because they were foolish, the Gingerbread Man because he was, after all, a biscuit, and biscuits are meant to be eaten.” --Dorothy Butler, Babies Need Books: Sharing the Joy of Books with Children from Birth to Six, (Heinemann, 1998), Chapter Five: When I was Three, I was hardly me, p. 99.

A. Individual illustrated folk-fairy tale titles

1. Paul Galdone illustrated titles: Henny Penny, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Little Red Riding Hood, The Magic Porridge Pot, Little Tuppen, The Elves and the Shoemaker, Three Ducks Went Wandering, Cat Goes Fiddle-i-Fee, Rumpelstiltskin, The Litte Red Hen

2. William Stobbs illustrated  titles: The Crock of Gold, The Story of the Three Bears, The Golden Goose, The Golden Goose, Good King Wenceslas, Chanticleer, Johnny-Cake, Who Killed Cock-Robin?

3. Jack Kent illustrated titles: The Fat Cat, The Bremen Town Musicians

4. Edward Gorey illustrated titles: Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin

B. Selections from folk-fairy story collections

1. Selections from Tales from Storyland, illustrated by George and Doris Hauman (Platt & Munk, 1938): The Ugly Duckling, The Bremen Town Musicians, The Boy and the North Wind, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Billy Goat Gruff, The Marriage of Robin Redbreast and the Wren, The Lion and Mouse, Teeny-Tiny, Five Peas in a Pod, Shingebiss, Why the Bear Has a Stumpy Tail, The Fox and the Stork

2. Selections from A Treasury Of Bedtime Stories, illustrated by Hilda Offen (Simon & Schuster, 1981): The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Patchwork Quilt, The Great Big Turnip, The Gingerbread Man, Tim Rabbit and the Scissors, Pix Pax Pox, The Elves and the Shoemaker, Nail Soup, The Three Little Pigs, The Elephant and the Bad Baby, The Kings of the Broom Cupboard

3. Selections from The Fairy Tale Treasury, selected by Virginia Haviland, illustrated by Raymond Briggs (Hamish Hamilton, 1972): The Gingerbread Boy, Henny-Penny, The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids, The Little Red Hen and the Grain of Wheat, The Story of the Three Bears, The Turnip, The Three Billy-Goats Gruff, The Half-Chick, The Sun and the Wind, Molly Whuppie

4. Selections from The Tall Book of Nursery Tales, illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky (HarperCollins, 1944): Little Red Riding Hood, The City Mouse and the Country Mouse, The Foolish Milkmaid, The Wolf and the Kids, Lazy Jack, The Little Old Woman and Her Pig,

5. Selections from The three bears & 15 other stories, illustrated by Anne Rockwell (Harper & Row, 1975): The Three Bears, The Lion and the Mouse, The Gingerbread Man, The Water-Nixie, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Henny-Penny, The Shoemaker and the Elves, Teeny-Tiny, The Three Little Pigs, Lazy Jack, The Dog and the Bone, Little Red Riding Hood, The Little Pot, The Star Money

6. Selections from The Old Woman and Her Pig and 10 Other Stories, illustrated by Anne Rockwell (Crowell, 1979): The Old Woman and Her Pig, The Three Sillies, The Travels of a Fox, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Bremen Town Musicians, The Lad Who Went to the North Wind