Day Two Picture Books by Luna Lark

 Genre: Children's Picture Books

Source: I purchased

This is similar to the author’s egg book about feelings.  We have little dragons express a series of emotions, fear, joy, shyness, sorrow.  Each dinosaur is illustrated in a color that we usually associate with that emotion. Another cute book to have that talk with your child to explain emotions they may not understand and give them  ideas about how to handle them.

 

I love the way the author has each animal performing a night time ritual such as washing their hands or curling up for the night. This book gives the child a feeling of being loved by their mother and going to sleep feeling safe and secure.

 

A calm way to end the night is by reading about zoo animals as they prepare to go to sleep. As each animal snuggles with their parent a sense of calm surrounds them. A calming way to put your young one to sleep each night.

Day One of Picture Books By Luna Lark

 Genre:  Children's Picture Books

Source:  I Purchased them.

This picture book has some of the most gorgeous illustrations I’ve seen in a long time. It is a simple
bedtime story of forest animal big brothers, letting their siblings know they love them. They show this through reading bedtime stories to them. They run through the meadows with them. Watch the moon, take night walks and howl at the moon together. They gather nuts, sit and snuggle. All of these things we do with our young ones and it makes it so relatable.

A great picture book for explaining to young children that it is okay to have all kinds of emotions and feelings. It also explains what they can do to handle those emotions. I enjoyed this because I often hear parents that it is not okay to get mad about something. They are essentially telling their kid that you can only have certain feelings.  Instead this book gives them a way to handle them all. I loved the fact that each egg was colored in a way most of us think of feelings. For example we are angry we think of red, sad we think of blue.   Simple and cute way to talk about feelings.

A great story to read before bedtime. It shows little dinosaurs with their mothers doing things together. They brush their teeth, have cookies and milk, meditate, read, listen to music.  All of these things are done to get the little one prepared for a good night sleep.

Summer Math Bridge by MamTalk

 

Genre: Children’s workbook
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

 

For this review I am going to step into my teacher mode. I am currently teaching middle school English. However, my background is in elementary education. I started out teaching kindergarten. This would have been a wonderful book for that age.  I love the idea of using it to bridge the summer months when we see so many students slide backwards.

This book is geared towards children ages 5-7. It’s table of contents breaks it into  parts. Part one is learning numbers. The idea is that children learn their numbers or reinforce their learning by counting, tracing, and coloring.  Part two is all about counting. Kids count the shapes and circle the correct number, leading up to coloring, counting and writing the correct number. Part three is all about comparing things. They start out drawing lines from the same number to the same number shapes. They move on up from that to more, less, fewer, bigger and smaller.

Part four is about putting objects inside, outside, to the right, left, top or bottom of shapes. This section reinforces direction and shapes and of course there is plenty of coloring to make it interesting. Part five is all about recognizing patterns. I believe this is an area student  don’t get enough practice with. When asking middle school students to recognize patterns in different subjects, and especially math, many struggle. Maybe if they had a book like this when they were younger they wouldn’t struggle so much in middle school.

Part six is all about recognizing size, such as big, small, tall, short, long.  This not only asks the child to recognize  the difference, but is teaching the youngest child important vocabulary words they will need to be successful in school. Part seven introduces them to basic, simple addition. We start with simple shapes, fingers and finally writing and adding the numbers. Part eight is your basic subtraction. It is handled very similar to the basic addition. Part nine  is naming the basic shapes. Some of this is more of a reinforcement as they will have been introduced to many of the shapes throughout the workbook.  Connecting real life objects to the basic shapes help with that reinforcement, as does making them choose the shape that is different.

So, putting my teacher hat back on for a minute, only because my grandkids are in upper elementary or have graduated. This is a book I would recommend to parents of all young children who would like to keep the learning fresh over the summer. With this book it can be done in as little as ten to fifteen minutes.