Chick Pea has really been enjoying a weekly craft day that allows us to work on letters and sounds. It’s a great way to not only teach kids the letters and their sounds, but also give them a chance to work on their fine motor skills by placing the animal parts onto the paper. She’s also very proud of the them, and loves to look at them displayed on the wall.

So far, we’ve made it through “I for Iguana”, and the quality seems to be improving every week. The excitement builds up every week because she now knows which letter is coming next and which animal she’s going to be constructing.

Here’s a list of animals you can use, but feel free to come up with your own creative ways to go through the letters with different animals or a different set of objects altogether. TIP–spend 10 or 15 minutes after bed time the night before you plan on doing the craft to prepare everything, cut out the shapes you’ll be using, etc.

• Alligator
• Bee
• Caterpillar
• Dog/Dragon
• Elephant
• Flamingo
• Giraffe/Gorilla
• Horse
• Iguana
• Jaguar
• Kangaroo
• Llama
• Monkey
• Nautilus/nest
• Octopus
• Penguin
• Quetzal
• Rabbit
• Snake
• Tiger
• Unicorn/Umbrella Fish
• Vampire Bat
• Walrus
• Fox
• Yak
• Zebra

It’s a good thing we love The Mine-o-saur so much, because Chick Pea absolutely adores it! For the last couple of weeks this has been a nightly read for her. We’ve been reading it to her once or twice ourselves, then she gives it a shot. Sure, she’s only reciting what she can remember of the words, but it’s so fun to see her slide her finger across the page as we’ve modeled for her. She’s definitely aware that the words on the page are what we are speaking, and she turns the pages at the appropriate times. She also enjoys naming all the letters in the words and reciting their sounds. We’re one step away from putting the sounds together!

The story may be a little advanced for some toddlers, and we’re not sure that she’s picked up on the small nuances of the story, but we go a little further than the text of the book to explain to her that the other dinosaurs are sad when the Mine-o-saur screams “MINE MINE MINE” and they don’t want to play with him. “Que feo, Mami!”

We’ve been applying the book to daily life when her selfish side comes out–”Do you want to be a Mine-o-saur, or a Share-o-saur?” So what if the book never mentions a “Share-o-saur”?

Some other fun things we do with this book is practice counting objects–cars, balls, green creatures, purple creatures, etc. The last page of the book shows 11 or 12 dinosaurs huddled together. We make it a point to let her count all the eyeballs with each reading, and since she’s still having trouble with the numbers past 14, it gives us a chance to model that as well.

Overall, one of the favorite books in our family library!

Thanks to our readers who joined in on the fun for our October Lesson Idea Contest! We had some wonderful entries via email and it was tough to choose just three winners…but here they are:

• 1st Place – A Year Subscription to Highlights Magazine : Congrats to Rachel for sharing how she used Stump The Teacher to get her son to dig deeper into the chapter book they were reading together. She was really impressed how it only took him a couple of nights to come up with some insightful questions.
• 2nd Place – Special Reading Kit: Thanks to Valerie who had lots of fun playing Straight or Curvy with her 4 year old son. Now he points them out everywhere they go! His special made reading kit will include many cool things he can use to make his straight and curvy letters.
• 3rd Place – $10 Abunga gift card: I hope Lori has a good time choosing a gift for her daughter on Abunga.com! She shared how she has helped her daughter learn more vocabulary words in the books they read by playing Vocabulary Riddles.

Congratulations to these three ladies and thanks to everyone else who joined in! I love reading how you guys use the lessons to help your children read at home. Although the contest is over, I would love to keep hearing from our readers (just remember to post your experiences in the comments!)

More contests to come in the near future…so stay tuned!

Halloween is just around the corner which means October is almost at an end…as well as our Lesson Idea Contest. I’ve gotten a couple of really good entries from our readers! However, they were submitted as emails instead of comments or blog posts, so I will be adding them to our site as comments for all to see.

You still have time to join in for the chance to win some cool prizes…so don’t be shy! Winners will be contacted and posted on the site November 1st. Good Luck!

Thanks to one of our readers for seeking advice for this great problem. Great problem, you ask? Yup…it’s a great problem to have a child that is an advanced reader! Here’s our reader’s question posted as a comment on our last post about advanced readers:

I have a second grade daughter reading at a 4-5 grade level. She devours chapter books at a rate of 1-2 per day. She is tested on these books and her comprehension is incredible. She’ll read 4 books, test on them and not confuse story lines or content. I am in awe. The problem is I want to challenge her-but many books in her level are not age appropriate. What can you suggest-titles or activities?

A child who loves to read so much that she/he devours books at record speeds is a wonderful thing indeed! Yet it can be quite challenging for parents to keep up! How far ahead should I let them read? Should I keep some books off limits? How do I keep him/her engaged and interested without exposing them to innapropriate content? The questions go on and on.

As I started to write a response with suggestions on things you can do as a parent, I remembered an article I read a while back that did a great job addressing this issue. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I strongly encourage you to check this article out because it has great ideas on choosing books for your advanced reader along with some suggested titles.

Along with Bochan’s great ideas, I’ll add my own suggestions for some series titles:

Series:

• Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time trilogy is one of my favorites!
• American Girl History Mysteries series are written by different authors and explore American histories from a fictionalized young girl’s perspective. While not necessarily humerous, they are mysteries which are a bit more complex in language than the Magic Tree House books.
• Backyard Wonders series by Nancy MacCoon is great for kids curious about animals and natural history.
• Five Ancestors books by Jeff Stone (Crane, Snake, Tiger, Monkey, and Dragon). It’s the same story set in China, told from 5 different character’s points of view. The author even has a cool site that shares history, activities, and news that relate to the books.
• The Misadventures of Inspector Moustachio by Wayne Madsen. I havent’ read this one yet , but it is highly recommended for avid readers. Here’s B&N’s synopsis: A riveting tale that is full of adventure, suspense and humor. This book will hold particular appeal to children ages 8 to 12 who want something more engaging and compelling than what typical chapter books offer their age group. Already being endorsed by educational professionals, The Case Of Stolen Time will become a classic favorite of children and educators alike!

In addition to choosing great titles, you may also want to consider doing some pre, during, and post reading activities with your child to extend their experiences with the books they love. I’m currently working on more lengthy articles to share specific ideas with you, so stayed tuned!

You may remember that I mentioned The Latin Baby Book Club here before. If not, be sure to check them out to find out more about Latin authors, bilingual books and reviews, songs, and much more!

So they were having a book giveaway on their site this month…and I won! I never win anything, so I’m really excited about winning! Plus I’ll be adding this great bilingual book to Chick Pea’s library:

If I Could is a lovely and imaginative book written by Nancy Sweetland. With full text in both English and Spanish, it follows the imagination of a little boy who wonders what it would be like to do things, if only he could.

They’re going to have another giveaway next month, so give them a visit, join the giveaway, and see if you win! Muchas gracias Ladies!

Speaking of winning…don’t forget to join our own October Lesson Idea Contest for your chance to win some cool prizes!

This post originally appeared at Reading Coach Online. Thanks for visiting and supporting our site!

Another great gift card to Abunga.com has been given away. Congrats to our September Giveaway Winner!!!

Didn’t win? No worries…our next contest starts now!

October Lesson Idea Contest: I hope you’ve had some time to try out some of our Lesson Ideas for this month’s contest. If not, you’ll still have the month of October to explore and try them out -so join in anytime. All you have to do to enter our October Contest is to do one or both of the following:

1. Leave a comment on one of our Lesson Ideas to let us know how it worked out for you. You can even  add any changes you made to make it work for your family.
2. If you have a blog, just write a post about one of our Lesson Ideas to share how it worked for your family. You can even include pictures and videos of the lessons. Don’t forget to link to us in your post (that’s how we’ll know about your post – it’ll act as your entry to the contest)!

That’s it! That’s all you have to do to enter the contest. Oh wait…there is one more thing. Your comment and/or blog post will have to be interesting enough to catch my eye because this is a contest. And to make it more fun, the winners will not be chosen randomly. That’s right I said winners because there will be a total of three winners this month! So really try to earn some creative points with your comments and posts!

You’ll have until midnight on October 31st to enter to win one of the following fabulous prizes:

First Place: A full year subscription for your child to Highlights Magazine. I love this magazine! We will order your subscription for the grade/age level of your choice.

Second Place: A special order Reading Kit tailored for your child made by yours truly.

Third Place: An awesome $10 gift card for Abunga.com

Have fun and good luck!

It’s that time of year again…the time to celebrate Banned Book Week. Held every year on the last week of September, BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or to create books that may sometimes be viewed unorthodox or controversial by some. Their goal is to promote intellectual freedom.

I remember one year in Florida there was a lot of buzz about a certain book that was being banned in all schools county by county. Guess what happened? EVERYONE wanted to read it…and just about everyone did. It’s still one of my favorites! It’s funny how banning books has that effect, no?

So go check out what it’s all about and also to see what titles are creating buzz this year. Enjoy your freedom!

They’re at it again…Cheerios will be giving away free books this fall for their Spoonful of Stories Program!

If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a program that works to donate books to kids who need them. From Cheerios:

In celebration of the 6th anniversary of the Spoonfuls of Stories® program, First Book and Cheerios® are distributing 100,000 children’s books by John Lithgow to programs serving children in need across the country.

The book titles for this year haven’t been released yet, but they will include 5 award winning books inside each Cheerios box. They will even be printed in English AND Spanish – can’t beat that! Although I prefer the honey nut variety, I’ll definitely be picking up a couple of boxes this fall!

Looking for a great idea to do with your kids to tie in some of the literature you’ve been reading? Well then you have to head over to Sycamore Stirrings for one of the most innovative ideas I’ve seen in a while! She shows you how to tie in food and treats with the books you read in a really fun and cute way…and your kids can help!

Here’s a preview:

You can see more examples here.

Katy has ready made tins for many popular books and she also hosts contests for her readers with different themes. Be sure to check this out!