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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

31 Days::: Elephant and Piggie {Mo Willems}:::Great Gifts for Little Ones


The Elephant and Piggie series is a long standing favorite in our house...and in my library!  I love these books because...

1.  The text is simple - perfect for children learning to read, perfect for older children to practice fluency (reading with speed and emotion) with.  (The girls LOVE reading this series to Quinn!  And I love hearing them become better, more fluent readers!)  Their speech is in word bubbles and it is easy to distinguish who is speaking.

2.  Children get these books!  The character's thoughts and words are easily relatable to small children.  They get it!  And they LOVE that they get it!

3.  The stories are a great length!  We can usually get two in at bedtime along with a little conversation and some snuggles.  (Please tell me you've, ahem, improvised a book or two at bedtime before because it.would.never.end!  Definitely NOT the case with these!)

4.  They are funny!  We all laugh while reading Elephant and Piggie and I highly recommend reading funny stories with your kids!  Why?  Because if you're laughing, then you're having fun and reading should be fun...especially when it comes to reading with small kids. (I'm certainly not saying that the Political Science textbook that I had to read in college was fun, but I think you may have understood that!)  I love laughing with Quinn at bedtime because it helps me forget that he knocked over his milk at dinner, spit on his sister, pulled the dog's tail and made our house looked like a tornado touched down in it.  I forget about all of those things (and he forgets my stern voice, angry eyes and the time outs that he served) and we end our night together on a high note.

5.  They are not gender specific!  This is something that we struggle with in our house.  After having two girls, we have a ton of Barbie, Disney Princess and Fancy Nancy books and even though we do not say "this is girl" or "this is boy" in our house (I mean, really, Quinn had a pedicure from March to August!), Fancy Nancy is a hard sell for him.  I have also found that in my library Elephant and Piggie is loved equally by girls and boys.

Quinn's favorite Elephant and Piggie Book:::There's a Bird on Your Head!
Casey and Chandler's favorite Elephant and Piggie Book:::We Are in a Book!
My favorite Elephant and Piggie Books::::Watch Me Throw the Ball! and Should I Share My Ice Cream?

Need to buy a gift for a little kid?  (ages 2 - 5ish)  Trust me, these books are perfect!  They are especially perfect if there are older siblings to help with reading in the house - get in that fluency practice!  (You can even have them practice reading in accents or fun things like - reading like a pirate, reading like a princess, reading like an angry monster, etc - it's funny to hear what they come up with.  *shakes head* Crazy kids!)

2 comments:

Rebekah said...

I'll have to check one out in the library.

Kristin said...

Hmmm... I'm going to have to look for these. I generally avoid books with speech bubbles because that is annoying to me, I think my little kids would like this kind of humor. And I so relate to the editing of books at bedtime! ;-)