A Free Story Podcast for Young Children

If you are looking for a free story podcast for your preschool, be sure to check out the Snuggles Podcast. There are a variety of recorded stories for you to listen with your children. There are archived episodes too, so you can listen to back episodes too!

Listening to stories help children to learn what reading sounds like. If you grab the book that goes along with the story, you can follow along with the words, teaching left to right tracking.

If you don't listen to these podcasts, read aloud with your preschooler! Any book will work, even the newspaper!

Let me know what you think!

Book Recommendations

I have started a new blog just for my book recommendations for children of all ages from Barefoot Books. Visit the blog at http://live-barefoot.blogspot.com

Preschool Contest- Share Your Thoughts!

Another Preschool Activities Contest! All those that enter will be eligible to win a free book from Barefoot Books.

You can enter by commenting on this blog or posting on your blog and leaving the link in the comment section. If you comment, please make sure I have an email address to contact you.

For the contest:
What is the funniest thing your child has ever done? Is it something that made you roll over laughing or roll over in embarrassment? This can be a child of any age... but not your husband!

Share with us your funny stories and win a free book!

Math & Geography Skills in Reading

Books offer so many opportunities for cross-curricular learning. That means that books can teach reading, but also other subjects. Catch That Goat is a book that offers more information on Nigeria and counting backwards. That includes geography skills of learning about Nigeria and the math skill of counting backwards.

"Ayoka has been left in charge of the family goat, but within minutes it has vanished! As Ayoka searches the streets of town, she sees how much trouble a runaway goat can cause among the market stalls. One thing after another disappears, and when Ayoka finally catches up with the goat, she finds more than she had bargained for."

This book also contains 7 additional pages of cultural information and maps, making it easy to discuss the differences in culture and the location of the country.

Incorporating different cultures into your reading time helps preschoolers understand that people live differently. This is important in teaching children to accept the differences in others, whether it is skin color, a disability, or the way people dress. Try to incorporate cross-curricular ideas in your reading and cross cultural ideas too!

For more information on Catch That Goat, visit my Barefoot Books website.




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Book Review 1: Using Alphabet Books For Preschoolers

I have recently launched my website as a Stallholder for Barefoot Books. I joined Barefoot Books because of the wonderful collection of books, CD's, puzzles, and other related items. The illustrations are beautiful! The content is superb! I know you will love these books as much as I have.

My first book review is Alligator Alphabet. It is available as a board book or as a hardcover. I love alphabet books because they are a natural way for children to understand first letter sounds. The reason this book is so wonderful is that is not only has the uppercase letters, as most alphabet books have, but it also has the lowercase letters. It also has a story that goes along with it, not just a letter by letter book with pictures.

This book will be a wonderful addition to your child's library. A child can never have too many books! Beginning young with age appropriate titles and materials will encourage your child to love reading and to enjoy books. If you are interested in purchasing this book or any of the collection, check out my Barefoot Books website.


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Free Audio Stories and Fairy Tales

Searching the free podcasts on iTunes today, I found a lot of good resources for young children and moms. One was the Storynory audio stories and fairy tales. Prince Bertie the Frog brings you an audio story every week. Each one is read specially for him by his friend Natasha, who has a lovely British voice. They are very professionally recorded with great tone and inflection in her voice. You can download it and listen to it on the computer or download it to your iPod or MP3.

If you don't have iTunes, get it. It is free, for your use even if you do not have an iPod, and a great link to some free resources. When you download it, click on the iTunes store on the left sidebar. Then click on the podcast, kids and family. You will love what you find! There are even videos that can be downloaded right to your computer, for free!

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Zoobooks- A Magazine for Children

Zoobooks is the kid-friendly animal magazine for children ages four to twelve. Beginning at age 4, Zoobooks will teach your children to love and appreciate animals- something most children are already interested in! As your preschooler learns to appreciate the joy in reading, it is great to provide them with different types of reading material. Magazines for parents are usually all over the house, but children don't have many opportunities to read their own. Give your child a subscription to Zoobooks and give them their own magazine! It will not only encourage a love of reading, but will also enhance what they know and love about animals. This would be a great Christmas gift!

Why choose Zoobooks?

# Educational children's magazine fun for kids 4 to 12!
# Great for both beginning and middle level readers.
# "Family-tested" by more than 8 million parents.
# Endorsed by teachers who use them in their classrooms.
# The perfect gift for kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, and friends!



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Pretend Play for Preschoolers

Pretending is so important, I have probably blogged about it before! Right now, my preschooler is pretending his left over pizza is a birthday cake (he even remembered his Daddy's cake from last year). He went outside and got some candles (sticks) and put them on his cake. My husband said he normally would not let him play with his food, but he is done eating and he has a good story going.

He now has sang Happy Birthday to his daddy and will not let daddy sing. It is his birthday.

Not only is it cute, it is very good for brain development. Also, pretend play correlates with reading. Learning to read it assigning an abstract sound to a shape (letter). Pretending a pizza with sticks on it is a birthday cake is assigning a role to an object that is not the right role.

It is the same process. So encourage pretending, even if it means playing with the food!

Read Books In the Car

For those that do not get car sick!

With DVD players so common in cars now a days, children don't get the time riding in cars to play with toys like the used to. I have a DVD player and I can not imagine a long trip without it. But I try not to play a movie when we are driving around town. I try to encourage looking out the window, playing, or reading a book.

Reading books is a great car activity if you have kids that don't get car sick. I put a big stack in between the two children's car seats and let them grab them up as we drive along. This is also great on long trips because eventually movies get boring too.

Pack a basket full of books and put it in the car. Reading can make the trip go quicker and encourages the love of reading.

Eric Carle- Read the books, visit the site

I love Eric Carle! I love the great pictures and wonderful stories he creates. I have even decorated my children's room with insect pictures from his books. Today I found the Official Eric Carle Website.

Eric Carle books are great for reading to your preschooler. I used to recite Today is Monday for my son when he was an infant. The sing song pattern calmed him when he was screaming in the car. The Grouchy Ladybug and The Very Hungry Caterpillar are excellent for teaching time and veggies.

After you read some of the book, visit his site. There is even a virtual tour of the Eric Carle Museum for Picture Book Art. It is more of an adult site that a child's site, but it does give a lot of information about the author.

To see more books by Eric Carle, visit my preschool amazon store.

Music and The Preschooler

Preschoolers love music. They are predictable, enjoyable, and repeatable. Singing with your child is a great pre-reading skill. They are learning about rhyming, rhythm , and patterning, all skills that are needed for reading.

Make sure you sing with your child. Old McDonald Had a Farm, Mary Had A Little Lamb, or even Row, Row, Row Your Boat are great starters. You can also get music CD with nursery rhymes, worship and praise, and newer versions of old songs are fun to have in the car and house.

Don't forget, if you have satellite TV or radio, there are special stations just for kids.

Pictures Tell The Story

After a week long vacation at the beach, there are plenty of memories to recall. If you took pictures, they can be a great way to talk about the wonderful event to secure those memories. You can also use them to make a personalized book for your child to read and improve word recognition. Snapfish is a great website to help you create a simple book.

Pictures are great to encourage self-esteem and help with memory. There are many ways to use your pictures to help your preschooler.

One way is to make a book. I used Snapfish to make a small 4 x 6 spiral bound book of my son's birthday party. You can add backgrounds and captions under each picture. If you use simple captions with names, words to label the major object, or places, your child will begin to associate the picture with the word. Try not to write too many words if you are using it for reading recognition. This is to encourage reading, but not "teach" reading.

If you are interested in trying it out, here is a way to get free prints. The book is a different purchase, but it all works together.

Special Promo: 30 FREE prints plus free shipping with coupon code SNAPYFRSH07

Vacations Improve Reading!

Vacations are always a good idea- for relaxation, for exploration, and for information. Vacations can be elaborate or simple. Whenever you leave the town or city you live in, no matter how big or how small, you are giving your child's brain more to absorb. This is particularly important in reading. When children read a story, they have to connect it to something they already know. The technical word for this is "schema." If you hardly ever leave your house, your neighborhood, or you town or city (especially if you live in a small or rural area), your child will be a less likely to put words to pictures of ideas that are new to him.

Vacationing helps build new ideas and new discoveries. If you cannot afford a long or far away vacation, take a trip to the nearest city (driving distance) to you, even if it is smaller than yours. Small towns are good to teach big city kids about rural life so they know why country mouse was different than city mouse.

So try to take a vacation. Find a relative to visit. Find a new place to explore.

And on that note, I will be vacationing for a few days at the beach!

Learning in the Kitchen

I love to cook (but not dinner!). Cooking is one of the best things you can do for teaching: it is fun, it uses math, it uses reading, it uses science. You cannot go wrong if you let your preschooler help out in the kitchen- unless they (or you) catch something on fire!

I was cutting up veggies tonight and my son came over and asked what the yellow pepper was. I showed him the seeds and told him that is how more yellow peppers grow.

He actually moved on quickly, but it reminded me of how great the kitchen is... plus, maybe he will be the cook someday!

Baggie Books

This is a great idea I used as a school teacher. Take 4-5 zipper sandwich baggies and staple them together on the seam side, not the zipper side. Then use this as a book. You can make a cover with some paper or not. Go outside and find treasures to slip into each bag. Or go around the house and find treasures. Things to include can be leaves, bugs (preferably dead), small toys, pictures, or anything else you can find that will fit in the baggie. If you want, you can use small address labels to label each picture to encourage reading recognition. The sky is the limit with this activity. This is a great one to do once a week and make a new book each time. (But don't keep the bugs too long, they may smell!)