r is for rockets and robots {book reviews}

A couple weeks ago, we read lots of good books about two topics that I thought would be of interest to Jonathan: rockets and robots!

Robots 

The Robot Book by Heather Brown

This was a fun board book that Jonathan really liked. It features moving gears and parts to show how robots work. It's very clever and very appealing to toddlers. We checked our copy out from our local library and the only drawback was the moving parts definitely showed some wear. However, this is a wonderful book for robot-loving toddlers and preschoolers.

Me and My Robot by Tracy West

This was probably Jonathan's favorite book. It's an early reader about a young boy Reese and his robot who try to find a friend's missing kitten. It has just enough humor that made Jonathan laugh. He requested it several times.

Create Your Own Robot Sticker Book

This isn't a storybook, but an activity book that features a robot body and enough parts (stickers) to make four different robots. Jonathan loved this book and kept wanting to pull it out and build new robots. It was a pretty big hit and was very affordable fun!






Rockets

On the Launch Pad: A Counting Book About Rockets by Michael Dahl

This is a cute concept book in which you and your children count down from 12 to 1 in preparation for a rocket launch. The illustrations are bold and each page has a hidden number to find. Jonathan had fun counting the objects, but wasn't as interested in finding the number. Still, it's a good concept book for any rocket-loving little boy and a wonderful addition to a space unit.

Roaring Rockets by Tony Mitton

Ah, Tony Mitton. How we love his books, especially his Amazing Machines series. Ant Parker's bold pictures are a wonderful complement to Mitton's rhyming verse. This book teaches about rockets and astronauts in a way that's fun and educational. Jonathan always asks for repeated reads of these books and Roaring Rockets was no exception.

Curious George and the Rocket by H.A. Ray

This board book is an excerpt from one of the original George books. Jonathan really enjoyed Curious George when we went through our monkeys unit and I thought that Grace might like the shortened board book. The story was still too long for Grace to enjoy, but Jonathan liked reading the shortened story.

Rockets and Spaceships by Karen Wallace

This is an informative easy reader about space. It has photographs on each page showing rockets, spaceships, and astronauts and teaches about space travel. Unfortunately, this one didn't really interest Jonathan. He hasn't really developed a strong interest in outer space at this point. If your little one is very interested in space, astronauts and rockets, this would be a good book to try!






This was in the middle of potty training and days where Jonathan was lukewarm about the activities I presented. Some things went really well, and others were a complete bomb. But, if you're looking for some ideas on these topics, check out my Pinterest boards on rockets and robots!

r is for Rainforest {Books}

Last week we learned about the rainforest as we began reviewing the letter "r". We had fun learning about the different animals in the rainforest.

Over in the Jungle: A Rainforest Rhyme by Marianne Berkes

This is a delightful book that you can sing to your children. You count rainforest animals to the tune of the children's song Over in the Meadow. While you are singing, you will learn more about the different animals that live in the rainforest . The clay illustrations just seem to jump out at you and the back of the book includes different actions you and your children can do for each animal. This is tons of fun to share with your toddler-- it's a book we read often in the past few weeks. Apparently she has books about other animal habitats-- I'm excited to read more of her works!


The Umbrella by Jan Brett

This offering by noted children's author Jan Brett is a fun tale that takes place in the Costa Rican cloud forest. It's similar in style to The Mitten, an earlier work of Brett's, in which animals crowd one by one into a leaf umbrella until there's no more room. It's an entertaining tale that Jonathan wanted to hear several times. Brett's illustrations are, as always, breathtaking and full of detail. This is a fun addition to any rainforest unit!

Rainforest Animals by Paul Hess

This is a perfect first book to introduce children to Rainforest animals. Each two page spread features a different animal in its natural habitat. Bold text displays the animal name and a short 4-line verse is included which describes some of that animal's behavior. It's the perfect book for younger toddlers-- even Grace had the attention span to enjoy this book.

The Living Rain Forest: An Animal Alphabet by Paul Kratter

I usually try to pick out an alphabet book that corresponds with whatever our "theme" for the week is. So this is a beautifully illustrated alphabet book that features different animals and plants of the world's rain forests. Each double-spread layout includes some interesting facts about the animal, including their size and length. It's very interesting and informative, but the information really isn't appealing for toddlers/preschoolers. Jonathan just really liked looking at the pictures! The book includes animals from all over the world, so if you are looking to focus on animals of a particular regions, then this one may not be the best choice for your classroom.

The Rainforest Grew All Around by Susan Mitchell

This is another rainforest book based on a song. This book adapts the song The Green Grass Grew All Around. As you go through the verses of the song, you learn about the different animals and plants of the rainforest. The illustrations feature lush scenes of the Amazon and the sidebars include additional facts. There's also a cookie recipe using ingredients that we import from the Rain Forest-- it would make a wonderful baking project to share with your little ones!

A Walk in the Rainforest by Kristin Joy Pratt

This is another alphabet book that was written and illustrated by a fifteen year old girl. It follows a little ant named XYZ on its walk through a rainforest. The any meets different animals such as "an intriguing iguana" and "an observant ocelot". Some of the letters seem a little forced such as "a natural Native who knows nature well", but all in all it's a cute book.




All of these were fun reads for our week in the rainforest. Thanks for visiting!

I'm linking up to these wonderful blogs:

Read Aloud Thursday @ Hope is the Word

Reading Aloud Challenge @ Footprints in the Butter

Feed Me Books Friday @ Little Sprout Books

What My Child is Reading @ Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns

Book Sharing Monday @ Smiling Like Sunshine

Amazon Rainforest Nomenclature Cards- free printable

Jonathan is really into animals lately. We have several of the Safari toob animals and he and all his friends have so much fun playing with the little animals! 

One of his favorite activities is to match the toob animals with their pictures. We've used other sets with Montessori nomenclature cards available online, such as over at 1+1+1=1, but no set has had all the animals in our toobs. So, I made our own for this unit! 

This printable includes all 11 animals in the Safari Rainforest Toob as well as 8 additional animals featured in the books we read such as The Umbrella by Jan Brett. I uploaded it to 4Shared and you're welcome to download it and use it for your personal use: 

I'm linking this over to Montessori Monday over at One Hook Wonder and Living Montessori Now. 

Enjoy!

r is for rainforest (33 months)

Jonathan is 33 Months

Bible 

This week we read about David and Goliath-- this is one of Jonathan's favorite Bible stories! More to come on Weds...

Books & Language Arts 


We read lots of books about the rainforest this week:

• Over in the Jungle by Marianne Collins Berkes*
• The Umbrella by Jan Brett*
• Rainforest Animals by Paul Hess*
• The Living Rainforest: An Animal Alphabet by Paul Kratter
• The Rainforest Grew All Around by Susan Mitchell
• A Walk in the Rainforest by Kristin Pratt-Serafini

(* denotes a favorite)

Jonathan worked on building rainforest words with daddy using Scrabble tiles and a free printable from 2Teaching Mommies. This was great for teaching how words progress from left to right:

We also did some more Rainforest pre-writing exercises too.



Art 

We colored a lot of the wonderful rainforest printables that Carisa made over at 1+1+1=1

We also did some work with stickers using his Rain Forest sticker activity book. The stickers are reusable, so it's great practice peeling and sticking:

Games 


Jonathan loves his toob animals. We have the rainforest set and I made a printable of Montessori nomenclature cards that features each of the animals in the toob. He had fun matching the animals with the cards:

We also played with our BambinoLuk. This is a great game for developing critical thinking skills. Jonathan loves it when I pull it out! 

Math


Jonathan also got a new puzzle this week. It's a Kid-O puzzle which features different pieces from narrow to wide. It's similar in concept to the Montessori cylinder blocks, but a lot cheaper! The puzzle was fairly easy for him, but it was a wonderful platform for talking about different widths as well as color variations.

Daddy also worked with him a little bit on adding and subtracting by putting toys in a pile one by one and then taking them away. I was surprised how quickly he started to understand what daddy was doing!


Practical Life 

We may have the naptime issue under control now. I've bumped back his afternoon naptime by over an hour and he's taken his naps pretty well all week. As a result, he gets to stay up a little later. One night he got to make pumpkin cookies with Mommy and Daddy! He and daddy had fun talking like the Swedish chef on the Muppets! Borq Borq Borq! 

Mommy's Favorite 


I'm sure you all know of the Pioneer Woman. If you haven't seen her blog, you should! She has wonderful recipes. She has a children's book called Charlie the Ranch Dog that Jonathan reads at his Nana's house. Nana happened to find a stuffed animal that looks like Charlie and he has quickly become Jonathan's favorite! His full name is "Charlie the Ranch Dog" of course(but you have to hear that in two year old pronunciation-- it's priceless). Charlie goes everywhere with Jonathan. He even gets his own "bowl" of food while Jonathan eats. Sometimes Charlie is too loud at bedtime, and gets in trouble, but otherwise he's Jonathan's constant companion:

Even when Jonathan has long outgrown stuffed animals, there will always be a special place in my heart for Charlie the Ranch Dog!

See what other moms are doing with their children over at 1+1+1=1 and Preschool Corner!

Tot School: a short week

Jonathan is 32 Months
Grace is 13 Months

We've had an abbreviated Tot School week, since my husband's grandfather passed away early Monday morning. We left Weds. to go down to central Illinois. We are down visiting family and attending the funeral. To simplify things, I thought I would combine our two usual weekend Tot School posts since this was a two-day week. So without further ado, here is what Jonathan and Grace have been up to this week:

Jonathan's Week 


I watched Jonathan's friend A. this week and when they were looking for something to do, I came up with this Montessori-inspired activity. I gave them pompoms, ice cube trays, and plastic cups and bowls. They had spoons and tongs to help transfer the pompoms from one container to another. Both Jonathan and A. loved this activity!

Another Montessori-style activity we did was rolling up place mats. Both Jonathan and A. really liked this one too! It's amazing how such a simple activity can hold their attention for a long time.

We worked on some tracing/pre-writing. Our focus next week will be "R is for Rainforest":

And Jonathan is still loving his puzzles. I found these word building puzzles for 50 cents at a rummage sale! We practiced sounding out the words after he would build a puzzle:

Grace's Week: 




The biggest news is that Grace is starting to stand! She doesn't think she can, but when she's distracted she will. I pulled out our musical table and she was so enthralled she didn't realize she was standing!

Since then, she's let go a few times, but she doesn't seem pretty confident yet. I'm sure this will develop over the next few weeks.


Grace did some "coloring" on our rainforest coloring page. Mommy of course helped with the colors. The girl loves to color!

And finally, I let her use her spoon for the first time unassisted. I gave her a container of applesauce:

You can't see it very well, but it's all over her hair! She went straight to the bath!

That was our (short) week. See what other tots have been up to at 1+1+1=1!