This book follows the exchanging of letters between two friends, Oscar and Bill. Oscar is an ant. Bill is an Octopus. Watch their friendship grow as you read the letters they send back and forth to each other.

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Pen Pals will help build print awareness, vocabulary, background knowledge, and narrative skills.

This book also builds early literacy skills such as talking, reading, and writing.

Extend the book by writing a letter to a friend or family member

Even if your little one can not write yet, this is a great time to practice picking up a marker and just doodling to understand the concept.

What you will need:

• 1 blank piece of paper, with or without lines.
• Plenty of markers

1. Adult: write at the top of the paper the word DEAR with a line and at the bottom the paper, the word LOVE or FROM with a line. This will be so you can practice writing names and showing your child where they would go on a letter.

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2. Allow your child to write whatever they would like the paper. You can practice words or just let them doodle.

3. When they are done, ask if they would like to send it to their friend. If not, keep it on the fridge.

Check out Pen Pals by Alexandra Pichard

All You Need for a Snowman is a great book for teaching early literacy skills. It all starts with one tiny snowflake. Follow as the children in the book acquire everything they need to build a huge snowman.

Read the book with your child, asking them questions along the way. Talking with them about the story develops their narrative skills and helps you ensure they’re understanding what you’re reading.

Ask questions about the pictures and the story. You can ask them whether the kids in the book have all they need to build a snowman and ask what else they need. They will be using their background knowledge to answer these questions.

The words on the pages float around like a snowflake. Follow the words with your finger to help develop your child’s print awareness.

Extend the book with a melted snowman!

After reading the book, make this melted snowman craft together. Let your child sweep white paint in a messy circle on a piece of paper. Add googly eyes and cut out a hat, scarf, carrot nose, and other other accessories your snowman might need.

Have even more fun with this song about a snowman sung to a familiar tune.

“I’m a Little Snowman” (to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot”)

I’m a little snowman short and fat. (hold arms out to the sides)
Here are my buttons, here is my hat. (point to tummy and head)
When the sun comes out, I cannot play. (bring arms above head in a circle)
I just slowly melt away! (sink to the floor)

The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza) by Philemon Sturges is a fun, silly book for all pizza lovers. The little red hen decides she wants to make a delicious pizza but finds herself in need of the necessary ingredients. Who will help her? After repeatedly hearing the phrase, “Not I!” from the dog, duck, and cat, readers will be delighted and amused by the ending.

Practices and Skills:

This story allows children the opportunity to talk aloud, teaching them narrative skills. Ask your children to guess what ingredients the little red hen will buy next or how the other animals in story will respond to her requests for help. Talking aloud also facilitates phonological awareness—the way a word sounds. Children will learn new words and at the same time predict the outcome of the little red hen’s shopping trips.

The story also fosters vocabulary and background knowledge. Children will laugh at the many ingredients the little red hen forgets each time she visits the store as well as learn about the many toppings that can be added to a pizza. Ask your children to name their favorite pizza toppings and what other toppings can be added to the pizza. They will learn more about what makes pizza such a popular food among people—and hens!

Activity:

Children can use their imaginations by playing. Encourage them to create their own pizzas using felt or construction paper. You can find an “order form” at:   http://overthebigmoon.com/movie-and-pizza-family-night-idea-w-printable-order-forms/

The possibilities are endless as children add more and more toppings to their pizzas!

Say hello to many amazing, colorful animals. Hello Hello by Brendan Wenzel is a great book for building Print Motivation. Print Motivation means making reading fun, and this book is fun!

While looking at the illustrations, notice how each animal shares something in common with the one on either side of it. Then, as you turn the pages, see how one animal leads you onto the next page. After reading the book with your child, check out the animal key in the back of the book. This is a great opportunity to learn the names of the creatures that we share this Earth with, especially those that are threatened or endangered. Learning the names of these animals increases your child’s vocabulary.

Extend the book with a paper plate snake craft!

We got this idea from craftymorning.com. Check them out for more detailed instructions, more pictures, and even more fun bubble wrap paint ideas. Here’s how our snake turned out!

You’ll need:

• bubble wrap
• a rolling pin
• a paper plate
• paint (we used green, but snakes come in lots of colors!)
  
• scissors
• googly eyes
• red ribbon or felt

First we wrapped the rolling pin in bubble wrap and squirted green paint out onto a flat surface (notice that we laid down cellophane to help with cleanup!)

Let your kids roll the rolling pin through the paint and then roll it over the plate. Leave it to dry (good opportunity to read a book!). When it’s dry, cut the plate in a spiral.

The middle of the plate will be your head, so feel free to shape it with the scissors! That’s where you’ll glue the eyes and the ribbon for the tongue.

Pick up the snake by the head and bounce around the house (or the library in this case!)

Betty is a little gorilla who has big problems with bananas. This hilarious book will have kids laughing and crying along with Betty and her friend, Mr. Toucan.

While reading the story, there are tons of new vocabulary words that can be discussed with your little one(s). It also allows a lot of discussing or talking about what Betty is doing or going to do next, as well as what she should not be doing. Anticipating what Betty will do can aid in childrens’ narrative skills as well. Along with the bright and colorful pictures, the story has bigger and bolder words to convey Betty’s emotions, which helps children with their print awareness by noticing the differences in text.

Extend the book with a paper banana craft!

We saw this craft on Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails and thought it would be perfect to go with Betty Goes Bananas, especially with the fun suggestion for making it scented.

This is a fun and easy craft idea that doesn’t require a lot of materials. All you need is a piece of white paper with a banana drawn or printed on it. You can make it a little special by putting some banana extract on a napkin or paper towel and rubbing it on the page. Have your child take some yellow paper and tear it up into little squares or shapes. For an older child, you can have them practice their scissor skills and cut the paper up (with supervision). Then glue the yellow squares onto the banana as a collage.

This playful story follows the antics of Hoot Owl, who tries to use his wits to catch his meal. This book is a joy to read aloud.

It is not written in verse, but the prose uses some rhymes and repeats certain consonants. This not only gives it a distinctive sound, but it builds your child’s phonological awareness, helping him or her to hear the smaller individual sounds within words. This book also contains a rich vocabulary, introducing your child to a wider variety of words than would be found in ordinary speech.

The story is funny, and kids will enjoy the way that the owl’s version doesn’t always match the pictures. This awareness of the plot is called narrative skills. Here, kids use the words and the pictures to find out what is happening; this ability helps them make sense of what they read. They may also be able to predict what happens next.

Extend the book with a pizza! Well, not a real pizza.

This felt pizza can work as a flannel board activity, a prop for a puppet, or even a game.  Here, I stuck the pieces to a blanket and had my wizard puppet “eat” it.

Kids can build a pizza piece by piece, starting with the dough:

“This is the pizza that  [child’s name]  made.”

Then comes the sauce:

“This is the sauce that goes on the pizza … ”

Next, add whatever other shapes you want. I used white triangles for cheese, green rectangles for pepper, and brown circles for sausage.  

Saying the poem has some of the same benefits as singing, and the pizza offers a great way to play. It also opens up the chance to talk about the pizza, about the owl in the story, about what sorts of things are good to eat—there is no limit to where this conversation can go! Bonus: handling the little shapes provides an opportunity for fine motor development, so building the pizza is a good precursor to writing.

The shapes in Shapes, Reshape! by Silvia Borando get all mixed up and it is up to the reader to guess what animal the shapes will turn into on the next page, which makes it a very fun guessing game for preschoolers!

Do you know what buzzy things the shapes will reshape into?

Ten dragonflies, flittering and fluttering!

This is a great counting book that also encourages shape recognition and vocabulary building. That big text helps children recognize words when they see them for the first time in print. This book encourages talking since it is asking the reader to come up with suggestions as to what the shapes could reshape into.

Children will enjoy the repetition in the text of “What could they be?” after each hint. The text is simple and follows a pattern: The first sentence gives a hint as to what the shapes will make once they are reassembled. Each answer is brief and includes a few alliterative descriptive words to describe each of the eleven different animals featured in the book.

Extend the book with animal shapes!

Supplies needed:
Construction paper (various colors)
Scissors
Glue stick
White paper

1. Cut out a bunch of shapes (squares, rectangles, triangles, circles) of various sizes and colors.

2. Rearrange the shapes until you think it resembles a type of animal.

Hey look, a moose!

You can make this a game by continuously rearranging the shapes to make more and more animals or you could glue each animal to a blank white sheet of paper.

Some of the first stages of writing involve drawing pictures and then telling stories about what the pictures represent; encourage a child’s narrative skills by saying, “Tell me about this picture!” or “What’s happening in this picture?”

Ah Ha! by Jeff Mack tells a whole story using only two words, Ah and Ha. You can say these words different ways to mean different things.

Read the book together, letting your child tell what they see happening. When you have your child tell stories from pictures, you are promoting their narrative skills. Talking and giving their own ideas helps them understand what you are reading and how stories follow a structure. Follow the words with your finger to show your child that the words have meaning. This helps them grasp the concept of print awareness.

Five Green and Speckled Frogs

After reading Ah Ha! sing “Five Green and Speckled Frogs” with your child. This fun song helps children learn how to count and understand the concept of sequencing. Learning that things happen in a certain order is a part of developing narrative skills.

“Five Green and Speckled Frogs”

Five green and speckled frogs sat on a speckled log
Eating some most delicious bugs – YUM YUM!
One jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool
Then there were four green and speckled frogs.

(Continue counting down.)

You can even make this fun craft inspired by Mel’s Desk to go along with the song.

Cut strips of paper and staple them around a paper towel tube. Print five frogs (you can source your frogs from anywhere, or draw them if you like) and let your child cut out and color them. Glue them to the paper and then have your child color water on the other side of the paper. Sing the song, flipping over a frog each time one jumps in the water.

If you need more detailed instructions, check out Mel’s Desk!

In This Little Pup, a small gray puppy chases a ball as it bounces past increasing numbers of farm animals, each group taking part in a different activity. Although deceptively simple, This Little Pup is packed with early literacy components.

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Skills:

Narrative Skills – the ability to describe things and retell stories. The descriptive words and fun, colorful illustrations can help your child retell the story.

Vocabulary – knowing the meaning of words. This Little Pup is filled with farm animal names, number words, color words, and action verbs.

Print Awareness – knowing that the written word has meaning and noticing print everywhere. The large, bold font for number words, color words, animal words, and others help your child be more aware of print.

Practices:

Playing – Bounce and roll a ball to each other and past toys, etc. while using descriptive words, such as “the large ball bounced over the red block,” or “the small green ball rolled under the kitchen table”.

Talking – While reading the story, count the animals, name the animals, identify the colors. Discuss the meaning of the many action verbs in the book, such as “fluttering”, “chirping”, “squawking”, etc. Try using the rhymes and songs found later in this post.

Reading – After hearing the story, go back and have your child tell you what is happening in the pictures.

Writing – The dashes throughout the book illustrate the movement of the ball. Have your child follow the movement of the ball by tracing over the dashes with his/her finger.

Extend the Book:

Here are some great bouncing and rolling rhymes and songs you can sing while you bounce or roll a ball between you and your child!

Mother Goose Club Ball Nursery Rhyme

Macaroni Soup Roll the Ball

Bouncing Rhymes from Around the World

You can also make a paper plate beach ball!

You will need:

• A paper plate
• Six colors of construction paper, paint, crayons, or markers
• Glue (if using paper)

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Divide the back of a paper plate into six sections.

Have your child cut or tear a different color of paper for each section and glue to the sections. Alternatively, your child could color or paint each section instead.

Add a small circle in the center.

The Rainbow Snail is a brightly illustrated picture book with easy-to-read text that is great for teaching colors to toddlers and preschoolers.

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We follow the charming snail and discover all the colors of the rainbow. This book promotes vocabulary and background knowledge.

This book also encourages talking and playing as you describe the different colors of the rainbow: blue like the raindrops, green like the grass and yellow like the sun.

Extend this book by making a rocking rainbow snail

What you will need:

• paper plate
• white, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple construction paper
• scissors
• tape or glue
• black paint

1. Fold the paper plate in half.
2. Paint the plate black to match the snail in the book.
3. Cut out paper circles making the red one the biggest and purple the smallest.
4. Cut out black strips. Cut out white and black circles for the eyes.
5. Glue or tape pieces together.
6. Glue or tape the circles and the eyes on the plate.

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