Duck on a Bike

 Duck on a Bike by David Shannon
5
I normally don't care for books by this author. No, let's clarify, I don't care for his "xx David" books, so I've not read any others by him. Until this one--which I didn't realize was by him until after I read it, which is a good thing otherwise, I might not have found this wonderful book.

This is a silly book about a duck riding a bike past all the other animals around the barnyard saying hi to all the other animals. What I really like is that only the duck talks. When the other animals respond to duck's hello, all they say is their sound, but then the author writes "but what he really though was...." Duck also gets more and more daring on the bike which is cute.

The cute part is the end, after Duck says hello to the animals, a bunch of kids on bikes ride to the farmhouse, leave their bikes, and presumable go play with whatever child lives here. Now, all the animals get a turn to ride a bike. The last page with "The End" on it has duck looking at a tractor. I can't help but prompt Ian to speculate what would happen next. But I wonder if he would have figured it out on his own? Oh well.
Great book, though silly, cute.

Game: Mancala

Game: Mancala
4
The age range for this well-known traditional game is 6 years and up. Ian is just 4, and he is able to play a short version of this. The first time I gave it to him, he just played with the pebbles and the holes, but I told him we could play it later. The next time, we played a version of the game so we could just practice what it meant to pick up a pile and distribute them one in each hole down the line. The next time, he wanted to play for real. I was skeptical, but he did great. We actually made it through almost a whole game, so as he acquires a longer attention span, we'll be able to play more and more. I love games like this where young children can play, but it's also actually fun for adults, too. I can definitely see us playing this more as he gets older. But this is a lifelong game-I hope we'll still be playing it when he's a teenager and even into adulthood.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

 Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle
5
As you might be able to see from the picture above, this has been well loved. I think we got this as a shower gift before Ian was born. He loved turning pages, and sometimes we would only be able to read a couple words on each page because he so quickly wanted to turn another page. Now, Colin is at that stage. For some reason, kids are drawn to this. Colin goes and gets this book more than any other, brings it to me and starts grunting, which when interpreted means, "Up, Read please". We often added the animal sounds to it and sometimes the ASL signs (I had to look them up). A well loved classic in our house!

Firefighter Ted

 Firefighter Ted by Andrea Beaty and Pascal Lemaitre
3
Ian likes this book more than I do. It's a cute, but silly book of a young boy who pretends to be a firefighter all day. At breakfast, he sprayed whipping cream on slightly burnt toast-that was funny. But at the school science fair, the principals pants really did catch on fire, so Firefighter Ted clipped his suspenders to get the pants off. Guess girls don't think losing your pants or seeing underware is as funny as boys do. Anyway, the end of the book leads us to believe there will be others in the series with different occupations.

Game: My First Brainbox

Game: My First Brainbox by Mindware
5
This is a wonderful memory game. This is the only one that is made for preschoolers and young elementary. There are many other versions including history and such that would be for probably age 8 and up. This game consists of many cardboard cards with pictures on one side and questions on the other. Also a timer and dice. The rules say look at the timer for 10 seconds (the timer) and then roll the dice. The other player asks you whichever number you roll-a question about the picture.

However, we alter the directions and don't use the timer or dice. Ian looks at the picture until he's done, then I start asking the questions-usually all of them. Some are easy: what color is the ____?; Some are harder: Is the man on the train wearing a tie?. This is so much fun, I look forward to using the other, older games in the future. This is a game for all ages, as even an adult would sometimes have trouble with these questions.

As shown below, some pictures are scenes, some are just a group of things.

The questions for Camping are:                                         The Questions for Toolbox are:
1. How many fish can you see?                                         1. Is the toolbox opened or closed?
2. Has the boy caught a fish?                                             2. How many tools can you see?
3. Is the boy wearing a hat?                                              3. Are there any nails in the picture?
4. How many tents are there?                                           4. Is the hammer inside our outside the box?
5. Is the fish blue?                                                            5. Does the screwdriver have a red handle?
6. Can you see the sun?                                                    6. Is the toolbox blue or green?

Frog and Toad Together

 Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel
4
This is one of those learning to read books that's a great story for reading aloud to those kids who are not yet learning to read. Frog and Toad go on many adventures together and this is just one of the books. The book is broken into "chapters", but they are each a different story. The stories are slightly silly sometimes-what else do you expect with a frog and a toad acting like people-but not too bad. I like reading it to Ian and he loves hearing it.