Spartacus' Reading List: April 2018

New series of posts: updates of what my kids are reading! Spartacus is nearly 4, and books have always been part of our bedtime routine. We read a set for about a month before he rotates to a new set. Here are the current favorites (affiliate links included if you'd like to pick up copies for your own preschoolers!). Spartacus gives them all four out of four stars, but Hubster and I are less enthusiastic about all of them when we read them multiple times a day...

Pretend by Jennifer Plecas

Although he got it for Christmas, he's only recently gotten into this book as his imagination really has started to develop. Spartacus particularly enjoys this since the purchase of his new bunk bed/tent from IKEA. It is about a little boy and his dad pretending to be on a boat, then build a fort, then watch the stars. It is super adorable, and I enjoy reading it, although it tends to be a Daddy favorite.

Llama Llama Time to Share by Anna Dewdney

We also own the original Llama Llama Red Pajama and Llama Llama Nighty-Night, but this Anna Dewdney delight has Llama Llama learning how to share his toy (after some llama drama) with his new neighbor friend. Since we're working on "sharing" with Little Miss Sister, this is good to reinforce the cooperative aspect.

Curious George Makes Maple Syrup

Not nearly as good as the original H.A. and Margret Rey books from the 1940s. I got this one from the Scholastic Fair at school. It is a retelling of the cartoon show, and George learns, unsurprisingly, how to tap trees and make maple syrup. Not my favorite to read by a long shot, and we tend to summarize and paraphrase and not actually read the lengthy paragraphs. Also, the book mentions George's favorite part of Sunday being his pancake breakfast with The Man in the Yellow Hat, but I insert "after church." Because George should go to church.

Curious George Visits the Dentist

Another Scholastic find, we bought this to encourage the dentist as a not-scary thing before Spartacus goes for the first time this summer. Given that it took us literally two years to get a successful, non-teary-eyed haircut, and that he hates loud noises of all kinds, I don't anticipate the first dentist visit going smoothly, but hopefully George will help explain. George bites into a wax apple, loosens a tooth, and (spoiler alert) loses it and gets a shiny coin from the tooth fairy. Another slightly painful book to read and we paraphrase. We change it every time so he can't memorize it, because otherwise he knows when we leave things out.

Fort Wayne TinCaps calendar

Not actually a book, but he loves baseball and our local minor league team, and he actually has us "read" the 2017-18 calendar they send out with the schedule. Mostly he comments on the pictures, but it is our job to read the months. Stupid, but not painful because it reads in less than sixty seconds ("January...February...March" "Ooh, that's the pitcher!").

 

Check out his May/June Roundup post for more book recommendations!