5 a Day Books - Week 1

My daughters, like myself, would read books all the live-long day if I let them. Sadly for them, Mummy thinks it's also important to get outside, play with other kids, eat.... So when I found this brilliant 5-A-Day-Books challenge at The Imagination Tree, I could not resist. The challenge is to read the same 5 books to your tot every day for a week. Doing so allows your kids to 'read' the books (ie: they remember the words and can make the association between the spoken words and the ones typed on the page) at an early age, and exposes them to a variety of text types, and language structures, etc. Click here for the full post at The Imagination Tree.

For our very first 5-a-Day-Books Week, we choose:

Mrs Honey's Hat, by Pam  Adams

A classic book, and one of Eden's favourites. Follows Mrs Honey through her week as she loses one item from her hat each day, to have it replaced by something else (e.g: a cat takes the bow, but leaves some fishbones instead). Great for encouraging memory skills! Bright, simple illustrations keep young ones engaged. Highly recommended.

The Best Jumper, by Lynne Garner and Sarah Gill

Little mouse Spindle receives a beautiful jumper made by his Grandma and wears it to death (most toddlers could relate to this, I think!) and, oh no! he outgrows it! That is, until Grandma comes up with a creative solution.

Grug and the Green Paint, by Ted Prior

Grug is a popular children's series based on a little critter who lives in the Australian outback and has a myriad of experiences which young children can easily relate to. In this particular book, Grug gets a job painting a house in the city, and chooses his favourite shade of green for the task. Short, sweet, readable and simple, the Grug books are always a big hit in our household. Eden already knows several of them off by heart.

Molly's Jolly Brolly, by Erica-Jane Waters

Molly goes out for a walk with her pretty umbrella, and has imaginary adventures inspired by the people she meets. Has a very simple, repetitive tagline as Molly says "This is no ordinary brolly, my brolly and I have..."[met pirates, flown to the moon, etc]. Both Eden and I really enjoy this one, it has a great rhythm and gorgeous illustrations. Highly recommended.

Each Peach Pear Plum, by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

A visual feast with an ongoing eye-spy game? Tick.

Nursery Rhyme characters your child is familiar with? Tick.

Simple, rhyming text? Tick.

This brilliant book asks readers to find a Nursery Rhyme character on each page, keeping children interested throughout. Also enables you to introduce some characters your child may not be familiar with; Eden didn't know who Tom Thumb or Mother Hubbard were, but she loved seeing Cinderella and Robin Hood! A must-have for every child's bookshelf.

Those were our picks for Eden for the week just gone. I'm looking forward to seeing what she chooses next!

For Ava, I choose two simple board books. She's not even 9 months old yet (but she does LOVE reading) so I wanted to focus on two board books which can keep her attention for the week. I chose:

I Love You Baby, From Head to Toe, by Karen Pandell

Such a lovely book! This was Eden's absolute favourite when she was a baby and now it's one of Ava's faves too! On each page, one of Baby's features is listed along with a comparison (for example: "Baby's eyes shine like stars") beginning from the head, and ending with the toes.  

Where Is the Green Sheep?, by Mem Fox

I love reading this story to my girls. It has a simple, rhyming text with simple, colourful (and often funny - to Eden at least) illustrations. We meet the Wind sheep and the Rain sheep, the Car sheep and the Train sheep, but where is the Green sheep? Read this gorgeous book to find out! If your child's bookshelf doesn't already have some Mem Fox books on it, it should.

In conjunction with reading these books every day, I'll also be doing a few activities with the girls which tie in to some (not all!) of the titles. Keep a look out for those.

Thanks for reading! ~L.