January Parent Guide Activities - ANIMAL FRIENDS
This month's theme is Animal Friends - these books will help bring our your little one's wild side! We're off on an adventure to meet lots of new animal friends!
Starting with the Bitty Box, we had three sturdy board books - Animal Families: Forest, Jungle: A Slide and Play Book, and Animal Parade.
Language Concepts & Book Interaction:
- One of the best parts of Animal Families: Forest are the lift-the-flaps! Some are very well hidden and tricky to spot. Encourage your reader to scan each page, searching for the flaps themselves!
- Before lifting each flap and revealing the name of the baby animal, see if your child can guess what they might be called. Were they surprised by any of the baby names? What other baby animals do they know? What is a baby dog called? A baby cat?
- Make a fox family using paper plates! Instructions available here:
https://bookieboo.com.au/blogs/parent-guide/beyondthebook-activity-paper-plate-fox-family
Language Concepts & Book Interaction:
- Allow your little one to explore the book independently before showing them how to use each slider. It's a great opportunity to develop problem-solving skills.
- Make your own slithery snake paper chain! Instructions available here:
https://bookieboo.com.au/blogs/parent-guide/beyondthebook-activity-paper-chain-snake
Language Concepts & Book Interaction:
- The reversible puzzle pieces in Animal Parade help introduce comparison, with statements such as "I am bigger than...:, and "I am smaller than...". Try mixing up all the puzzle pieces and helping your child put them back in the correct order, from smallest to biggest. Then, try again but from biggest to smallest!
- Discuss what other animals might be larger or smaller than the one shown on each puzzle piece, or try comparing the size of household objects e.g., "The microwave is bigger than the toaster, the fridge is bigger than the microwave".
Next up is our Biggie Box. In this month's box we had two gorgeous hardcover books: Almost an Animal Alphabet, and Animals at Night.
Language Concepts:
With its beautifully intricate graphic illustrations, this book will spark the interest of children and adults alike (we fell in love the second we laid eyes on it!). Almost an Animal Alphabet is a great transition book as readers grow from page exploration and letter exploration to reading simple words.
Discussion Topics:
- Before you start reading, ask your child what they think the book might be about. Encourage them to use the title and cover pages as clues.
- Do you have a favourite animal in the book? What do you like about it?
- One type of animal in this book is extinct, and one is imaginary - do you know which animals these are?
Hands-On Activities:
- Choose your favourite letter. Can you think of other animals that start with that letter? Try drawing a picture of the animals you think of.
- Play memory by matching upper and lowercase alphabet letters. Game available to download HERE.
Animals at Night introduces readers to the wonderful world of non-fiction. Explain the difference between fiction and non-fiction, i.e., that fiction books are like stories, and sometimes have imaginary characters while non-fiction books are full of facts and useful information about the world around us. It may help to explain that there are lots of things we read that are non-fiction e.g,. newspapers, instruction manuals (like the one on the plane), and even street signs!
Discussion Topics:
- Before reading - what do you think this book might be about? Encourage readers to use the title and cover illustrations as clues.
- While reading - which is your favourite page so far? Have you learnt any new facts?
- After reading - where do you think would be a good time to read this book? Maybe in the car or on a trip to pass the time?
Hands-On Activities:
- Encourage little ones to think about the difference between fiction and non-fiction, and see if they can find any other non-fiction reading materials in the house.
- Choose one of the unfamiliar animals in this book to research more. What do they eat? Where do they sleep?
- Animals at Night comes with a glow-in-the-dark poster! Hold under a lamp to 'charge' the poster, then turn off the lights and see the ocean creatures come to life!
Our Family Box included 1 book from our Bitty Box and 1 from our Biggie Box. This month's books were Almost an Animal Alphabet and Animal Families: Forest.
xx Karly
Owner, Bookieboo
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