What My Child is Reading & Other Blog Hops

I found a great blog hop that highlights the current books we are reading with our kids. J and I don't usually focus on a theme. We go to the library often and I just pick books that he would be interested in that also have a good message or lesson.

Click the link below to see what others are reading!

The Berenstain Bears say Please and Thank You
Needless to say, we really like the Berenstain Bears. I like the messages that they teach. Our family embraces good manners so we regularly work on using them and teaching them. My son is very good about saying thank you, but we continue to work with him on please. He will say please, but it's usually after I have to say "How do you ask when you want something?" The book takes an interesting look at what happens within the family when they forget the simple niceties like please and thank you. It's Grandma Bear (Gran) who helps them all remember. She brings them what they call a framed sampler to remind them. In many of our books, I like to improvise the words by adding the Lord to it. So the sampler says "Matters Manner" and I added "Matters Manner to God" when I read it. I add little things like that to plant seeds in J's heart.


The Day of the Dinosaur, Stan Berenstain
Dinosaurs remain one of J's favorites and we liked this simple book. J is starting to explore more about how dinosaurs came to be and what happened to them. This was a good introduction for him and a real easy read. I think his favorite part was where they show a dinosaur dig with a big dinosaur skeleton being unearthed. I took the opportunity to explain to him what a paleontologist is and what they do. He loved just trying to say the word "paleontologist". One of the next times we read it, we got to that part and I almost turned the page until I realized he was asking me to point again to the paleontologist.


If Animals Kissed Goodnight, Ann Whitford Paul
We have had this book since J was born. Lately, he's been wanting to read it more at nap or bedtime, sometimes both. I love the illustrations in this book, there's something soft and inviting about them. The variety of animals is nice too. On one page, there is a seal daddy and his baby and a couple of fish swimming with them in the water. J was super excited to tell me there were "goldfish" (like the kind you eat) in the picture! They do look just like goldfish. Even more funny was when we were driving home later in the week and he was eating goldfish and says, "These are just like the goldfish in the book mommy! In the page with the seal!" Amazing how his memory is sometimes exceeding mine.


Going to the Zoo, Tom Paxton
This book actually has a song that goes with it and the words are repeated in a sing-songy way. The illustrations are really neat in that the main theme is a sort of picture frame and the zoo animals can be seen surrounding the edges. My son loved naming the animals by looking at their feet! (You'll have to check out the book to see what I mean.) In the story, the kids are really excited to be going to the zoo with their daddy. This was really fun for us with the rhythm to the words. J thought it was hilarious that the lion ate a lot of steak and then was out cold sleeping.



Rumble in the Jungle, Giles Andreae
J is really into animals, especially animals like this that we can see in our zoo. This was another fun one for us from the library that I think we'll keep around for a bit. As the reader, I really enjoy the books I get to read that have some rhyming and rhythm fun like this one does. A fun thing about some books are the "hidden" things you find in the pictures. This book has tiny little ants that show up throughout the book. I would have fun asking J where the little ants were and once he found them we would count them. They hid them so well sometimes that I had to help.


A Turkey for Thanksgiving, Eve Bunting
We brought out a Thanksgiving favorite this week. We got this last year from a friend of the family and J wanted us to read it nonstop. He still does! He loves it. It is a very sweet story about Mr. and Mrs. Moose who are having their friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. For Mrs. Moose, dinner is not complete until they have a turkey. Mr. Moose goes out "hunting" for a turkey who does join them, and you find out at the end to Mr. Turkey's surprise, he is AT the table, not ON the table.


Two Blue Jays, Anne Rockwell
If you have been following my blog, you know that I love to engage my son in feeding and watching the birds with me. This is something that my mom did with me when I was a child, and I'm so grateful that she spurred that interest and appreciation in me. We live in a pretty suburban area, so we get the usual sparrows and only a few other types of birds including chickadees, junkos and yes now a resident blue jay. Recently he (or she) started bringing a friend so sometimes we have two blue jays also! Even though I learned as a child that the blue jay can be a nasty bird, I have grown fond of them again. As J has grown excited waiting and watching for the jays to come, I was really happy to stumble upon this book in our library. It takes place in a classroom, where the teacher is introducing her students to two blue jays who are building a nest outside their window. She takes the class from watching the mother sit on the eggs all the way to the jays taking their first flight. I really enjoyed reading this story with J. The first page has a great illustration of several different types of bird eggs too so this was new learning for my little one.


Want more book reading fun? Click below to visit the other book blog carnivals where I enjoy linking up:


















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