Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Oh the Books We have Read

Inspired by Nina's journey of 1000 books, I have kept track of every book that I have read aloud this week. I was curious to see what kind of books we were sharing. This was a tedious, but illuminating task.

I have annotated the beginning and end of the list, but just could not find the time to finish up. I will come back to this post to complete it as soon as I can.



  • The Mitten by Jan Brett - one of our all time favorites.

  • The Mitten (Hubbard's Cupboard printable) - an emergent reader that goes along with the Jan Brett classic.

  • My Animal Book (Homeschool Share) - another printable to go along with The Mitten; Agent 004 and Cousin F ordered the animals before assembling.

  • A Second Is A Hiccup by Hazel Hutchins - offers concrete examples to illutsrate the abstract concept of units of time.

  • Snow Tree by Caroline Repchuck and Josephine Martin - the illustrations are beautiful, but the story is vapid. Worth borrowing from the library, but not one that we will purchase.

  • My Granny Went to Market by Stella Blackstone, illustrated by Christopher Corr - we read this simple rhyming book six times this week and labelled a map to go along with Granny's journey around the world. This is new to our collection, but is quickly becoming one of our favorites. I picked up a load of geography books to go along with it over the coming week.


  • Snow by Uri Shulevitz - a cute but forgettable winter tale.


  • Cocoa Ice - a story in two parts, Cocoa Ice describes how chocolate and ice came together to make ice cream in the 19th century. It is told through the eyes of two little girls - one in Dominica (chocolate) and one in Maine (ice) -- that are connected by the merchant that trades with both families. My four-year old daughter enjoyed the story, understood the geography, but couldn't quite get a grasp of the time period. A great book, but intended for an older (7-9 year old) child.


  • Temperature and You


  • Mathterpieces (just Agent 002)


  • Who Hibernates (Scholastic printable) 2


  • The Reasons for the Seasons (Gail Gibbons)


  • Baby Beluga (Raffi) 3


  • Ginger Bread Boy (Agent 002's school reader); we reread it after seeing a real fox.


  • How do you count to 100? (Scholastic mini-book)


  • The Winter Visitors


  • Secret Valentine


  • St. valentine's Day (non-fiction) 2


  • Papa, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M Joosse; illustrated by Barbara Lavallee - a young Maasi boy learns that a father's love is unconditional. A great book for reinforcing paternal love and affection as well as introducing a new culture.


  • I Love My Pirate Papa by Laura Leuck; illustrated by Kyle M. Stone - a wonderfully illustrated tale of a boy and his dad. On a pirate ship. Some crude humor, but otherwise very cute.


  • Dear Garbage Man by Gene Zion - Stan is a new new garbage man who can't bear to throw anything away. He gives the broken treasures away to the people of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the broken items are returned to the curb the next morning. The book's message seems to be that fixing things up is futile and that broken things are better used as landfill than reused. It was not all bad, however -- it led to great discussions about creative ways to reuse broken things.


  • Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Beuhner and Mark Buehner -a cute story about snowpeople's nocturnal antics.

  • Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss - the simplest Seuss for youngest use is permantly stored in our van and pulled out as we wait in various locales. Fortunately, I only read this lovely book twice this week.


  • I Can Count to Ten and Back Again - this is another book that we keep in the van. It is a cute story in which Big Bird opens a store on Sesame Street.


  • Spooky Riddlesby Marc Brown - Agent 002 selected several "scary" books from the school library this week; the girls have asked me to read this one several times.


  • Tractor Mac Builds a Barn by Billy Steers - a book about a tractor and farm animals. Any wonder why it is one of Cousin P's favorites right now?

1 comment:

Jenny said...

I love Nina's posts too! I wish I'd have thought to keep track of the picture books we've read too- it would be so interesting to look back on at the end of the year. I didn't know about the other printable to go along with the Mitten, so I'll have to try those. CJ Loves that one too. :o)