Baby Preschool Books

A favotite of my five year old. Likes to point to the charactors and and act out the story.

I agree with the other reviewer that this book probably isn't the best for a beginning reader. My two year old loves it as a "read this to me book", and I like it so much more than the Thomas books that are stories from the tv shows (I don't really like the themes in the some of shows--teasing, naughtiness, "you get what's coming to you", etc). I think it would have been even better if it had still photos, that is the best part of the other Thomas books. But regardless this book is very catchy (as any Dr. Suess-type book would be) and it is my favorite Thomas book. It is my toddler's favorite Thomas book too, I think he likes the rhymes. He brings it to me to read as often as he brings me his truck and car books. (He has a few of the Thomas books from the tv show as well and doesn't touch them).

This Bright-and-Early book does not have an Accelerated Reading designation. And while it is described by the publisher as being intended "for an even lower age group" than "Beginner Books", my own Mom-Guessimate for the reading level would be 2nd Grade. I say this because the vocabulary is quite beyond any 'beginner' I've known. Here's an example from one page near the end:

Up peeps the yellow sun!
Green train Percy now is done.
Home now to the Shed.
"Peep, peep"
The Shed is where
Percy can sleep.

Harder words include: clickety, orange, trikes, shadows, clouds, crates, stack, presents, and thick.

Now while all pages do not have as much text as the example above, the vocabulary is fairly consistent in it's difficulty.

Four Stars ::: This is a very nice book that tells the story of two friends who aren't on the same schedule. Percy is taking the mail at night, and Thomas is making his runs during the day.

For babies and toddlers there is a lot to talk about: colors and shapes, animals and things like eggs, bicycles and wagons. Fairly advanced readers could find this good practice if they are still interested in Thomas and Friends. For everyone else, it is a good Read-aloud. We liked the rhyme and colorful artwork. [No still photos from the television show in this book.]

This was my kids favorite bed time story for a long time. And I must admit one of my favorites too. Although watch out for the whisper/shout page at the end of the book, it is very easy to get the kids all riled up just before bed time. Great book, we often give it as a gift.

I got this book for my nephew's birthday (he was turning 3) and he really loved it. It's really something fun and different for kids and all the parents were even entertained by it! I have had a hard time finding these books in bookstores, so I'm glad I've been able to purchase them on Amazon. I would definitely recommend this book for the little ones.

I had a couple of the Saxton Freymann books hanging around the house from my teaching days (Dog Food and How Are You Peeling). My 4 year old twins found them one day and loved them. I ordered them Food for Thought for Christmas last year and it is still a highly requested bedtime book. I love looking at the pictures as much as they do! It is amazing how they accomplish this using only food items.

Another picture book from the creative minds of Elffers and Freymann. This one illustrates concepts (shapes and colors, numbers and letters, opposites) with big, bold, and colorful photos of fruits and vegetables carved and combined into expressive faces and adorable animals and scenes. Each page is a new puzzle: H for Hair is easily identified as a leek (you might have to explain 'leek' to a child), root end up, but what are the 'insects'? (blueberries with onionskin wings). The humor may occasionally go over a child's head (look at X for X-ray) but that doesn't matter, he will still love identifying the fruits and vegetables the characters are made of. This is a wonderful book for group reading, children are captivated by the colors and illustrations and the large format makes it easy to see even for the children toward the back of the group. If you've liked others in this series you won't want to miss this one.

It's got a little bit of everything--fruits & vegetables, colors, shapes, letters, animals, opposites. Even adults will say "how imaginative!"

We originally borrowed this book from the library and I decided to purchase it after my daughter wanted to reborrow the book several times. She loves to read the story and sing the words over and over. It is a cute book my children love.

This story is cute - My daugher at age 4 at the time was in preschool and daily and I mean daily the boys would get this book prior to the girls getting it so it was a game every day to see who could obtain this book first...they never fought over any book but this one and the library had lots of books to choose from....anyways the girls and boys were fighting and pulling on the book one day that the book got ripped and the teachers had - really had enough of that book at that point and threw it away to teach the children a hard lesson in life.....meanwhile I had no idea as to what the teachers had done except for the fact that my daughter and her best friend came home crying that the book with the elephant and the peanuts got thrown out and why? the full explanation was there by them and they were devastasted..thinking that my child ripped a book so badly I immediatly went to Amazon and ordered it and sent it in with the two girls one day - the teachers look on their faces were priceless....every year both preschool classes always fought over the book and they were happy to finally get rid of a book that was always fought over ....and here we were bringing a new copy back....it was priceless an another year childrens will still be able to fight over it...tee-hee....I bought one for home and my daughters best friend....so now it is not a big deal if the boys get it right? We have our own copy....must have book really cute and the graphics are adorable.

I had to buy this book because my five year old daughter keeps checking it out of the library. When I told her she had to check out another book this week she said, "Why, Mom? This is a GREAT book!" That is definitely one to have on our shelf. The pictures are delightful and the repetitive phrasing makes it easy to read yet there are some tough words which she has mastered because she knows the phrasing. I wish every book I purchased would pay off so well. She also said, "Mom, if you look at the pictures you just have to giggle."

My 2 1/2 year old daughter LOVES this book. Every night before we go to bed, she asks to read "Peanut butter, Peanut butter". She's already learned the rhymes, I say a part, and she knows when she needs to chime in! I also love Nadine Bernard Westcott's illustrations -- I've begun to search for and buy all of her books! Truly enjoyable for both the child and the adult!!

My son loves anything with photography of trucks, trains, and especially construction equipment. The shape of the book is also novel to him.

The little one had a few others from this series and he likes this one just as much as the others. It's great.

I bought this book and another in the Things That Go Board Books series for my grandsons, 1 & 3. They seem to love the photos & ignore the text. The book lives in their car & is the perfect size for one or the other to read while traveling. This book is perfect for kids who love construction vehicles!

My truck loving 2 year old loved this book. He did manage to break it fairly soon, being a board book, but he still loves it.

My son is only 2 years old but he loves trucks. This is the perfect book for your son or daugther if they love trucks, too.
The pictures are real-life and the text provides informative information about each type of truck, with the correct name(s). I would recommend this book to any caregiver who has a child who loves trucks and anything that digs and moves!

I'm flying to Europe alone with my 18 mo old daughter next month and I found this book to be a great help in preparing for the trip. It contains a lot of useful information, tips, and things I would've completely overlooked had I not read this book.

If you have kids, and like to travel... you need this book. There were so many ideas there that I would have never thought of. It has made our lives easier when traveling and I've learned some really helpful things. It's hard to travel with small kids, especially if you're a new parent and just have no idea what to expect. So for me this has really been a great find!

Ok I know the title of the book is Travels with Baby, but it also says toddlers, and children. And truly did not tell me anything I didn't already know. Now if you are a first time mom, who has never traveled with a baby up to age 2, then sure its probably very helpful, especially if you have never had any advice from anyone else. Though it was how ever informational on, how to obtain passports, now that we (the) parents are no longer together, what you need to do. It also had lists of contact info on where to rent baby/ child items, like strollers, carseats, for traveling where you dont want to bring all that stuff, which can be rather helpful, so I give it 3 stars, for being semi-helpful!

Seriously, this is a travel bible for new parents. What a huge help this book has been from selecting a good stroller (wished we would have found this BEFORE we had our baby for car seat info too!) to calling ahead to find out if a hotel has a crib saving our trunk space from a pack and play or other. Prepping the diaper bag and carry ons have never been simpler and I have memorized the shopping list for baby must haves while traveling. Never would have thought of some of that stuff! The blog is excellent too. Please give this gift to new mommies and daddies with your baby shower gift...I am so grateful for the different age sections and different types of travel reviews. Thank you Ms. Rivoli!

I am about to travel to Europe for 2 weeks (cruise for part of the time) with my 7 month old and I found this book to be very useful. It had ideas that I would not have considered and I am now much less stressed about the trip. It seems very realistic about what to expect and what to pack and she also does not ignore the fact that no matter how prepared you are going to be, things will still not go as planned and you must be flexible. She gives great tips for these types of situations. Would recommend to anyone about to travel with baby and/or toddlers. Very easy read and easy to reference when necessary.

What I love the most about Jeff Wilhelm's reading strategy books is that I always come away with ideas I can use the next day in the classroom. This book has ideas you can use in the classroom on EVERY page. Teachers, myself included, don't have all the time in the world and can't read all the articles and books on new research that we wish we could. But make the time to read this one. It is worth every minute!

This book arrived in excellent condition. It arrived much better than I thought it would. Thank you so much.

I have not found a better book to help students really get into literure and LOVE IT!!!

It is exciting, informative, and has great ideas for teaching literature!

Wilhelm's book, Action Strategies for Deepening Comprehension is one of the most valuable teaching resources I own. I've had phenomenal success with the hotseating and tableaux activities, only two of the terrific resources in this great book. Kids of all ages love hotseating in particular because it's so much fun. In a nutshell: one kid gets in front of the room (I drape a piece of red fabric across the stool) and "becomes" the character. He/She may have a "helper" of their choosing by their side. The rest of the class are "reporters" who ask the character any question they choose. The student in the hotseat may confer with his "helper" in order to answer as the character would...and therein lies the beauty of this. As the questions and answers unfold, everybody is thinking and when an answer doesn't ring true, the majority
will know it and question it.

We've done this with multiple characters as well as the "author." The questions are nearly always completely authentic; as kids, most would feel stupid speculating about motive, etc., and asking questions, but as
"reporters" it feels completely natural. I love to see the light bulbs go in everybody's head when new ideas--synthesis!--occurs.

One of my best hot-seating moments was after reading "The Gift of the Magi," a difficult work for my 8th graders. We'd hotseated the two main characters as well as O. Henry, and it was the question to O. Henry that did it. A girl who had a real problem with making inferences asked him why he'd written the lines about Della being afraid that her new short hair made her look like a Coney Island chorus girl. My student, Tony, clearly had paid no attention whatsoever to that description--in fact I was surprised that anyone had-- and he really had to think. Finally, he answered, saying, "I wanted Della to be a little bit afraid that maybe she didn't look like a (and he stressed thsi)nice girl."

The book also offers a number of other "action" activities that you can use. For my money, these are terrific
for any age! I encourage you to check this out. I also had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Wilhelm present his research and findings on his new book, Going with the Flow, and I was wowed to hear him in person as well.

I took a workshop with Wilhelm this summer. He demonstrated these techniques and I quickly bought the book.
This book has revolutionized my teaching and I am going back to school this year incredibly excited about using it in my classroom. I teach kids that struggle and this is going to be great for them.

Wilhelm is a dynamic speaker. If you can, snag him for your school's professional development or run to any workshop he is giving.

Enjoy!

This book helps teachers find lessons already laid out for instruction to focus on specific comprehension strategies their students may need. Good examples and additional resources are included.

I own many books on the subjects of teaching elementary reading and writing. What I like about this book is that it does not waste time on well known theories, but instead presents practical lesson planning for guiding young readers. The lessons are easily modified for grades 2-5 and the order of the lessons presented makes perfect sense - including separate and distinct approaches to teaching reading of fiction and non-fictin texts.

This is an excellent resource for k-1 teachers. Full of engaging and thought provoking activities for young children. It makes learning fun!!

This book is full of great ideas for literacy centers in the primary classroom. There are great pictures and games that several students can do on their own. This is a must have resource for those that teach early reading.

This is one of those books I use over and over again with my K-3 reading groups. The kids love the activities and I am happy with what they are learning. To be good readers, children need to be able to hear the sounds that make words, change sounds in words to make new words, and see the relationship between sounds. This book supplies you with over 60 exciting lessons for just that. The lessons are easy to do and many you can do without any materials. The book does supply you with the needed reproducible manipulatives, picture cards, and word lists

One of my favorite and easy activities in the book is called Rhyme Away. You draw the given picture on the board and erase parts of the picture as you read clues to the class. The students have to finish a rhyme phrase and then erase that picture on the board. That is a Level 1 activity in the book. The activities range in Levels from 1 to 5. There are activities for rhyming, blending, syllable counting, sound matching, phoneme isolation, phoneme counting, phoneme substitution, phoneme deletion, and more!

This book gets my full approval and I am so happy to have found it.

This book gives you a routine of 5 or so activities for a group of 10 words at a time. These include word searches, mini-books, fill in the blank, and my students' favorite: sight word bingo. It is easy to use because it is all reproducibles, including the bingo boards. It does not share any teaching tips or theories, but if you're just looking for easy sight-word reproducibles it can be quite useful.

This workbook was wonderful, with games (like word BINGO), fill in the blanks, flashcards (you had to cut them out) and many, many different types of excercises that made the learning of sight words fun and engaging. My money was well spent.

I am very pleased with the format of the activity pages for sight words! Saves me time and my home schooled students enjoy them as well!

This book has excellent resources to teach sight words. The Bingo Games are a good hands on activity for the children to learn. The story books are another good source for learning to help children grasp memorization of sight words.

This book contains reproducible mini-books, bingo cards, flash cards, some word search puzzles and fill-in activities. In my opinion, the fill-ins are a bit too challenging. I even had trouble with them. The only thing in this book really "worth it" that I couldn't make as well myself, are the mini-books. The mini-books each contain several different sight words, so they seem to me to be more effective for review of words the student has already learned than in the initial learning of them.

When you are overwhelmed by what everyone tells you what you "have to have", this book helps narrow down what the must haves are versus the nice to haves and what is really not necessary at all. It pairs very nicely with "Baby Bargains" by Denise & Alan Fields

I just love this book!! It is full of all the information that I need for every aspect of my baby purchases!! And it's a fun read! I didn't feel like I was being talked down to by some expert on a platform, but rather that I was having a great conversation with one of my best gal pals. The author's humor and real-life examples were a wonderful touch and made this book really enjoyable.

I also have to say that besides being fun to read, the book was designed to actually be functional. There's a quick buyers guide and tips for what to look for in each baby "gizmo" that I'd want, not to mention a section for me to write my own best picks while out shopping. I've already used this handy feature to compare items online and actually remember what I thought about each - a huge help when you have 3 little kids pulling you away from your computer every 2 minutes.

Overall I really have to recommend this book to everyone - not just new moms but also experienced ones. Once you have a baby you're in this Mom's club, but no one told you about all the stuff that you'd need to purchase let alone be an expert on!! And no one wants to admit to not knowing the difference between a booster carseat and a convertible carseat. Luckily the Baby Gizmo buying guide arrived to discreetly (and humorously) let us know all the in's and out's of all that baby gear that we inevitably will end up buying. Thank you!!!

Someone on my expecting club board recommended this book, and I had to buy it because I was clueless on what I would need for our new baby due in May. It's nice to have information on all products in one spot. The humor in it certainly helps the read too!

I liked the list at the end of what you must have on your registry, as well as the "Must Have", "Nice to Have", and "Don't Need" ratings for each product category.

As a new father, my wife gave me this book. For a man who knows nothing about babies or what to buy for them, this is a great source of information. I have referenced several of the sections, when trying to select from the mountains of different babies products. Guys, if you have any questions, this book will help.

It is a little big, i.e. not small enough to actually fit in your pocket. I don't know about you but I am not about to carry it around the store with me. I read up before I go.

Overall, this is a great product. I would recommend it to anyone who has never dealt with babies before and to any new fathers who are worried about getting the wrong stuff.

Wow! What an informative and hillarious book! I had no idea where to start when shopping for a carseat. After reading the Baby Gizmo Buying Guide I feel like an expert! I love the sense of humor the book has because real people can relate to it. From virgin shoppers (ha, I guess their not virgins anymore) to veteran shoppers, everyone will learn something from this book! Great Job Ms. Heather Maclean!