Using Our Library

I have been faithfully taking the boys to "story time" at the local library, and now that the session has ended I am still hitting the library every week for new books. Matthew likes the same book read 800 times in a row, so it is nice to know that it gets to go back to the library in a fairly short period of time. Anyway, this week we're reading:

• Bus Stops by Taro Gomi. A bus stops at various locations, including a beach, a baseball park, a building site, and a hospital. This one is great for language opoportunities, but is better for the 2+ set since it has rather abstract pictures. Matthew LOVES this one, but Nolan would rather chew on it than look at it.
• Ten Seeds by Ruth Brown. This one is great for both kids. Very short wording and great illustrations. A boy plants ten seeds and due to a sequence of events, only one seed remains to produce a flower... which produces 10 seeds! There are several animals and good plant based vocabulary that you can introduce (roots, seedlings, shoots). I can point-and-label with Nolan, and practice counting with Matthew.
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (board book). Another great one for both kids. I should be ashamed that we don't own this one! Counting, days of the week, life cycle of the butterfly....this book is great!

I have to come up with three more books I want to check out for next week. I used to just browse and select books at random, but I've come home with some doozies. One day Matt was running amok and Nolan was crying, so I just grabbed three books that didn't have too much text and left. One was "A Fish In His Pocket" by Denys Cazet. About a bear who looks into a pond and drops his book into the pond on the way to school. When he gets to school he finds a dead fish in the book and carries it around in his pocket all day before giving it a fish funeral in a paper boat on the pond. Not exactly great material for a two year old! Let's just say I'll be consulting my Read Aloud Handbook before the next trip!

*Regarding Nolan's nose: the Rudolph look is because he fell on the playground by the library while chasing his brother. Proving that reading can, indeed, evolve into a contact sport!