Styracosaurus who?
Today is a great day! Why? I hear you ask. Well! Today saw the release of a brand new Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler children's book, The Ugly Five. We Love Julia Donaldson books and can not wait to read this.
Since the day we took Michael home from the hospital we have always read him bedtime stories. The first book we bought was a compendium of stories and it was awful! Phil and I would regularly come out of Mikey's room and discuss how poor the story we had just read was. It frustrated me they didn't rhyme, (I mean who doesn't love a rhyming story?) and were poorly written.
We soon expanded his book collection and welcomed books as gifts. I regularly choose to buy books as gifts because I think they are something they will hold onto for a long time and can bring so much quality time. We were so lucky to be introduced to the Julia Donaldson books by friends when Mikey was a baby and now we all have our favourites.
Michael is part of the book club at school so he always brings home new books for us to read. Last night it was my turn to read him his bedtime story and oh lucky me he brought home another Dinosaur themed book. Seriously who made up those names. They are REALLY! hard.
Pachycephalosaurus what?! Styracosaurus who? Chasmosaurus why?!
I think I need to do some research or at least ask google how to pronounce them because I have no idea. At the moment I am winging it but....I figure for Micheal's long term learning and development I should probably learn them. I can't have him have a disagreement with a friend over their names because I've just made it up.
Michael completed the reading challenge this summer. It fills me with so much anxiety borrowing books from the library. I really can't be doing with losing them. So much so I've made a library book rule that they need to be kept on the top shelf. I don't think it's been adhered to but we haven't lost any yet fingers crossed. I remember us avoiding the library for years as a child because we had lost the books. Mum obviously didn't want to pay the fine haha but it was probably my sister's fault. Ok ok mine also!
All this reading going on got me thinking about our families favourites on his book shelf. So I've compiled our top 5 Julia Donaldson books and our top 6 by other authors (yes top 6 I couldn't bring myself to ditch one!).
Top 5 Julia Donaldson Books
Tyrannosaurus Drip
Monkey Puzzle
Room On The Broom
Stick Man
The Gruffalo
Our Top 6 Children's Books
Each Peach Pear Plum - Janet and Allan Ahlberg
Scaredy Cat - Stuart Trotter
Dinosaur Roar - Paul Stickland
Gigantosaurus - Jonny Duddie
The Large Family - All In One Piece - Jill Murphy
Oi Dog - Kes & Claire Gray
I also really like the "Feelings" books by Kay Barnham. These books explore all the feelings children go through growing up such as jealousy, Sadness and Frightened for example. They have really good ideas for helping children and parents learn how to deal with these feelings. I need all the help i can get! So It makes bedtime educational for both of us and fun.
Christmas is not far away and each Christmas as a family we love to Watch the Julia Donaldson animations. Yesterday They announced that yet again there would be another book made into a family favourite animation. They announced it would be The Highway Rat. I'm really excited for this because A) We can sit Mikey in Front of the TV for 5 minutes whilst I make another festive drink and B) It isn't a story we've read before.
Tonight's book from school is "A Dragon On The Doorstep" Yey no Dinasour names. Do Dragoons have different difficult names? I think I will be fine tonight. Tonight my homework is Dinosaur names. Wish me luck! Mum In A Mann's World.
