What my child is reading...

I have been meaning to do a post about our favorite books lately, but I never seem to get around to it. I really would like to have record of some of them so that I remember to check them out again. We are very lucky to have a library system FULL of great books in Spanish. However, since it is made up of over ten libraries, I have to look for the books online and order them to be delivered to my closest library to prevent driving all over town.

Mateo is obsessed with dinosaurs right now. I mean OBSESSED. He has never had a favorite stuffed animal or lovey that he was really attached to. He has found love now in the form of little plastic dinosaurs. He eats with them, bathes with them, reads with them, and carries them everywhere. I think that is why I love these books so much- the little boy reminds me so much of Mateo. This is a series of books about a little boy, Dani, who finds a box of old dinosaurs in the attic, fixes them up, and carries them around in a little blue bucket. So far we have found four at our library and I am looking for a couple more. They are available in English too.

The next couple of books are all from a series of books made by a company called The Magic Castle. They are also available in English and I highly recommend them. They would make fairly easy early readers and (the Spanish versions) would be great for beginning to intermediate Spanish learners.

This book is about a little boy who finds a spaceship with an astronaut ready for take-off. Pablo wants to go to the moon also but he keeps remembering more and more things that he would like to take with him. After filling the ship with his pets, food, toys, and materials to build a house, the ship can't lift off of the ground.

We have read this book so many times that I probably should just buy it. A little boy finds a dinosaur that grants him a wish. The boy wishes that the dinosaur with stay with him all day and be his friend. The two get into trouble when the boy tries to teach the dinosaur tricks.

Besides dinosaurs Mateo also loves hippopotamuses. This is mostly due to a book that I will mention next time. I checked out this book just because of the main character but it turned out to be one of our favorites. The little hippopotamus gets hurt because he is playing dangerously and his mother and father show him how to behave safely. My favorite part of the book is a "Be Careful book" that they suggest you make at the end of the book. It covers not touching poison, not talking to strangers, etc. It is a great way to talk about safety at a level that preschoolers can understand and we plan to make our own safety book soon as a StArt project.

Head over to Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns to see other great book recommendations.

What my child is reading...

Many of my cyberbuddies have been studying dinosaurs lately so I decided to include some of our favorite dino-books this week for What my child is reading over at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns. D has been dino-obsessed for well over a year now. (I will soon post pictures of his very cool dinosaur-themed birthday party from last year.) Every week is dino-week around here so here are some (there are too many to list all of them) dinosaur books that we love.

Los Dinosaurios (Mi Pequena Enciclopedia)

If you are a Spanish-speaking family, I highly recommend this series of books, "Mi pequeña enciclopedia" (My little encyclopedia). We own several about pirates, insects, and jungle animals. At $3.99 a piece, I think that they are a great deal. They are great for teaching vocabulary about a certain topic.

Cómo juegan los dinosaurios con sus amigos?

This is an entire series of books that your child might like if they are afraid of the scary dinosaur books. In each book the dinosaurs are shown as if they have the same problems that children have, like not wanting to share, not wanting to go to bed, and not wanting to clean their room. D absolutely loves the book below that translates to "How do dinosaurs play with their friends?" All of these book are available in English.

Vivió algún dinosaurio cerca de tu casa? (Did any dinosaurs live close to your house?)

This was the very first dinosaur book that we ever owned. I include it because before D I had no idea how to talk about dinosaurs in Spanish. This book helped me a lot with some much needed vocabulary.

Life-sized Dinosaurs

Warning: If your child scares easily, this is NOT the book for you. My mother bought D this book for his birthday last year. Like I have said D is fascinated by dinosaurs and not at all scared. This really is a cool book. It is very large so that they can show pictures of a life-sized T-Rex mouth (it folds out), another dinosaur's claws (the name escapes me but I am sure that D would know), and a dinosaur egg. It even came with a poster of the T-Rex mouth as shown on the cover of the book and D has it above his bed. :)

Danny and the Dinosaur

My mother passed this book on to us recently. There are newer versions but we have the old version written in 1958. I can still remember my mother reading this book to me when I was little. Since the book is in English, my mother saved it and read it to D when she was visiting recently and he LOVED it. It is about a little boy, Danny, who wishes that he could play with a dinosaur while visiting a museum. A dinosaur hears him and comes to life. They leave the museum to play and explore the city. It is a simple book with a lot of repitition so D was able to understand most of it, even though his Spanish skills are still better. I did, however, notice while I was cruising through Amazon that they now have a Spanish version of this book. He may just get it for Christmas.

Día de los Muertos- What my child is reading.

This week's addition of What my child is reading will focus on Day of the Dead related books. If you would like to learn more about Day of the Dead click here.

Pablo Remembers

This was the favorite book of the week. Pablo Remembers is about a little boy and his family in Mexico getting prepared for a Day of the Dead celebration. The year before Pablo's grandmother passed away and they are going to build an altar to honor her. The family first goes to the market place to buy the items that they will cook and put on the family's altar. I used this book to show D what a typical Day of the Dead celebration consist of. The family cooks tamales, buys Dead bread (I will talk about this later in the week) and calaveras de dulce or sugar skulls, and builds a beautiful altar with photos of the deceased, candles, flowers, and all of the items that his grandmother loved while on Earth. Finally, the family gathers at the cemetery to decorate the tombstone with flowers and pay their respects. This book is entirely in English and a bit advanced for a pre-schooler. However, I would recommend it to a parent who wants to learn more about Day of the Dead and then use the pictures to explain the celebration to the child.

Day of the Dead

The illustrations alone in this book are worth checking it out. This is another book that takes you through the preparations for Day of the Dead. It is mostly in English with a few words in Spanish that are easy to figure out the meaning.

Calavera Abecedario

This book takes you through the letters of the alphabet in Spanish using beautiful artwork and skeletal characters. There is a glossary to help you understand the words but I do not think that you will need to use it much if you look at the illustrations.

If you want to find out what others are reading this week head over to Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

What my child is reading...

Our favorite book of the week was Mariposa Mariposa (Butterfly Butterfly). I could not find a picture of this book on Amazon but you can find it here. It is a very simple and colorful book about a little girl who finds and then loses a butterfly. While she is looking for the butterfly she finds other creepy crawlers (un gusano (worm), un escarabajo (beetle), etc.) This is an excellent book to learn the vocabulary of bugs and colors. All Spanish.

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We have checked Si Llevas un Ratón a la Escuela out from the library several times. D grabbed it again on the way out this week. We love all of the books in this series and as I am sure you know, they are available in English. D's favorite part of this book is when the mouse makes a mouse house out of blocks and furniture out of play-doh. I caught D making little chairs while playing with his play-doh this week.

El Primer Halloween de Clifford. Clifford and Halloween. Enough said.

What my child is reading...

M is about to turn 18 months (my, how times flies) and is very into books right now. D has always been a book worm but M just started to sit down with books for more than two seconds. Today I am posting a couple of M's favorite books this week.

Muu. Bee. Asi fue is a book about different animals and the sounds that they make. We have liked all of the Sandra Boynton books. You can read them in English and in Spanish. They are board books which are great for my Mr. Destructo.

¿Dónde está el ombliguito? by Karen Kat is a lift-a-flap book. Each page ask where a certain body part is and the child lift the tab to see it. This book is also available in English.

Este no es mi perrito is a must-have for babies. Each page shows a different dog and explains that it can not be my dog because (for example) it is has soft fur and then the child can actually touch the soft fur. These books are available in English as well.

Libros (Books)-Otoño and more

I checked out a few books about fall from the library. D, to be honest, was not very interested. I pick five or six books every night and have him choose which four he wants to read. I put the new library books in the mix hoping that he will pick them. The last couple of weeks he has become very opinionated about his book selection (don't ya hate it when they have their own opinions :) and refuses to listen to a book that he hasn't chosen. I have "tricked" him into listening to a couple of them by reading them loudly to his little brother and usually curiosity will get the best of him and he will gradually come over to see what is going on. Anyway, I have included the two fall books and the other non-fall books that we have read this week.

El primer otoño de Clifford was, like all Clifford books in our house, a big hit. My kids can not get enough of that big red dog. This book is all in Spanish.

el otoño by Josep Parramon

This is a simple book about what happens in the Fall. This book is entirely in Spanish published in Spain. There was no picture on Amazon.

This book, Counting Ovejas by Sarah Weeks was the absolute favorite of the week. A little boy who can't sleep counts sheep of different colors. This is a simple bilingual book with a pronunciation guide for non-Spanish speaking parents. Good book for learning or reviewing color words.

Another popular book with my kiddos. Siesta by Ginger Fogelsong Guy is a bilingual book about two children gathering items for a campout in their backyard. Another good book for reviewing color words.

This book has made several repeat performances this week. Borreguita y el coyote is about a

clever little lamb that outwits a coyote that plans to eat him. This book is written in Spanish but an

English version also exist.