Book of the Week: U.N.I.Q.U.E. Kids by Debra J.Slover

This week we have a different kind of book for you. The full title is “U.N.I.Q.U.E. Kids Growing My Leadership Garden.” The concept of this book in the author’s words:

U.N.I.Q.U.E. KIDS: Growing My Leadership Garden
will help you nurture and grow the unique leader within
each child.
Written for 8–12 year-olds, the story is a fable of the lost
sheep, Hugh. Representing the human heart, mind, and
spirit, he wanders onto the Leadership Farm. There, he
learns how to become a courageous leader with a unique
purpose and aim. He discovers that all plants have a primary
shoot called a leader, which eventually blooms. Like
plants, each child is a leader waiting to blossom.

The story starts out with Leda working in her garden when a lost sheep happens upon her. When Hugh the sheep tells her his story about why he left home, Leda starts teaching him the concept of growing a Leadership Garden within himself.

Through Hugh’s interactions with all the unique farm animals in the story, Hugh learns to develop his own Leadership Garden. Follow along on the journey and learn how to grow your very own Leadership Garden.

Debra has skillfully woven together a fable children will enjoy and understand with some very powerful lessons. All children need to learn the skills taught in this book to develop and have a fulfilling life.

This book goes beyond reading in several ways. First, at the end of each chapter there is a section called “Hugh Wants To Know.” Here there are discussion questions, writing activities and /or an activity to complete. This helps bring home what lessons were taught in that chapter. Next is the Activity Guide. This reinforces the lessons in the book through further discussion and fun activities for the children. There also is a listing of the Oregon Standards that are met by each chapter.

To learn more about U.N.I.Q.U.E. Kids, visit the Learder Garden Press.

posted by Joy Delgado
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Book of the Week: The Traveler’s Trunk by Amanda Litz

This week’s book is an incredible journey into the imagination of young children.

Sierra, Jacob and Brent are visiting their great-grandma’s house with their parents. Great- Grandma Addy loves to tell the children stories about great adventures about far off places. After another wonderful story about how she saved a naval ship from pirates, Great-Grandma Addy send the children off to play while she takes a rest.

In their exploration, Sierra finds a rope hanging down from the ceiling. What do they find? What great adventure do the three children have? You’ll have to read this fast paced beginner chapter book to find out what happens.

Amanda has really done an excellent job bringing this story to life. It will peak your child’s (or you own) sense of imagination. Do you have a reluctant reader in your house? This book will grab their attention. I can’t wait to read more stories in this series by Amanda Litz.

So, how has she taken this book beyond reading? I really had fun with all Amanda’s done. First off, at the end of the story she invites her readers to send in their own stories. Not sure what to write about? No problem. There’s a “fill in the blanks story” for you to use. These are fun and can have many different stories come from them. Oh, she also has a permission slip in the book for child and parent to fill out before she’ll post on her web site. Great idea! But that’s not all. Amanda has a 42 page activity book filled with fun activities like coloring pages, word searches and puzzles. These will keep your child occupied for hours and help them relive the experience of “The Traveler’s Trunk.”

Where can you buy this book?
Travel Trunk Publishing

posted by Joy Delgado
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Book of the Week: The 4 Little Pigs by Jeanette Ramnarine

This week I have a really cool book for children. Jeanette has done a great job helping us teach our children about the use of money.

Welcome to "The 4 Little Pigs." It's Caleb's third birthday and his parents want him to learn how to save and spend money. One of his presents is a box of 4 little piggy banks. They are named schooling, saving, spending and sharing. See how Caleb learns what to do with his money and how he decides to spend it.

Jeanette has created an easy to read and understand book about finances that all young children can understand. She shows ways to teach your young ones how to handle their allowances. Franfou's illustrations fit perfectly.

So, how does Jeanette take her book beyond reading? First, the whole book lends itself to questions and discussions between parent and child. Beyond that at the back of the book there's a chart with guidlines for how to encourage your child to split their allowance into the four groups. Over at her website, 4 Piggies she has each piggy bank with ideas for children on what to do with the money inside. Also, when she talks at schools she has coloring pages of the 4 little piggy banks that children can color and talk about what they'd use the money in each one for.

You also can buy the banks to help your young ones get started.

Where can you buy the book and the banks?

4 Piggies

Check it out and get your children on their way to financial independence.

posted by Joy Delgado
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Taking a Book Beyond Reading in Reverse

Do you collect shells, stamps or baseball cards?
Do you like to go bird watching, whale watching or watching the space shuttle launch ?
How about sports. Are you into basketball, soccer or football?

If you said yes to any of these categories, why not invite your child to share in your passion?

For example, I love to snorkel and collect shells. I can share these fun activities with my grand children. When we get home, we can pull out books on shells and tropical fish. From what we saw and collected, we can now use a book to find out what type of shells we collected and what kinds of fish we saw.

Don’t have a book? Hop on the internet and do a search together. There’s no telling what you’ll dig up.

Enjoy this summer with your children, share a hobby and take a book beyond reading in reverse.

posted by Joy Delgado
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Authors Who Go beyond Reading

Today I’m deviating from my normal post of Book of the Week. Instead I want to highlight several authors who do an outstanding job at taking books beyond reading.
* * * * *

Authors of children books are working harder than ever to take their books beyond reading. Here are a few well know authors who really know how to take their books beyond reading.

Barbara Park aka Junie B. Jones – What a fun filled site. There are activities galore you can sink your brains into. She has an interactive coloring book, fun downloadable activities, screensavers and trivia quizzes. For teachers she has a great teacher’s guide. Also, if you have older children she has books for them too.

Jan Brett – If you’ve never visited her web site, go there now. This is one author who really gets it. She’s a talented writer and illustrator. Her site will take you into her world of characters. She has art for teachers to use in their classrooms, interactive games for your children to do, murals you can print out, color and create and many more activities. She does all this using her loveable characters and even teaches you how to draw them.

Some new up and coming authors are working hard to give readers and parents lots of things to do. Here are a few examples:

Cynthia Reeg has a great Kids page. She has games, crafts, puzzles, reading fun, recipes and cool stuff. Definitely check this out.

Don P. Hooper’s activity page is awesome. He’s got coloring pages and interactive games that are a fun challenge.

So, check out your favorite children’s authors site. You never know what you might find.

posted by Joy Delgado
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Ways To Get Children Interested In Writing

There are many ways to spark imagination in a child. Here are a few ways to get those creative juices flowing even in the youngest children.

“What if”
Start by asking a “What if” type question and see what they say. Example:What if it really did rain cats and dogs?
What if you could fly? (Where would you go? What would you see?)

Give them a fill-in-the-blanks sentence. Example:
The ________ _______ down in a ________.
animal action word place
___________ put a _________ in the __________ and it _______________.
name object place action


“What happened next?”
Start telling a story. Then have each child in turn add to the story.
These are fun, especially when you have several children. Go around the circle continually adding to the story.

Take it a step further...
Record the story. You can type it out and have the children illustrate it.

Hope these ideas got your creative juices flowing. Have fun, and if you have any other ideas, please share. I promise to give you full credit.

posted by Joy Delgado
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“Earl the Earthworm Digs for His Life” by Tim Magner and illustrated by Lindsay Knapp

Today we have another one of Tim Magner’s books to share with you. This one is all about earthworms.

What do we know about earthworms? Come meet Earl. Earl is an earthworm who’s just been born and is trying to figure out just what it is that he’s supposed to do to contribute to the world. He sees bees, grass, ants and trees and knows he is different. When he realizes what his job is he is happy and loves to do it. What? DIG. Learn all about earthworms and how wonderful they really are.

Lindsay’s brings Earl’s journey to life. With beautiful vibrant colors she depicts the life of worms both above and below ground.

This book goes beyond reading with a helpful glossary of terms and a section on composting. You will even learn how to start and maintain your own compost so you can grow beautiful healthy fruits and vegetables to eat.

You can purchase “Earl the Earthworm Digs for His Life” at Green Sugar Press

posted by Joy Delgado
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Go Beyond Reading: Take it one step further

Need another idea to take a book beyond reading? Try taking it one step further. For example, you’ve just finished reading a book about moving to a new place. Ask your child or students to pick a city and research the area as if they are going to move there. What does the new city have for children to do? Do they have a library? Parks? Museums? Is there a lake or a river nearby? Are there any amusement parks? Mountains?

Next have them pick a different country to move to. What would be different there? What kind of money would they need? What language would they have to learn to speak? Is the country inland or on the sea? What do the houses look like there? What are the traditional foods? Holidays?

This can lend itself to all kinds of ideas and get the children excited about learning about new places.

posted by Joy Delgado
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Drawing is fun!

I love to draw, don't you? Drawing is a great way to help your child take a book beyond reading. They can draw their favorite part of the story, draw what they think happened after the story ended, draw their favorite character in the story, and the list of ideas goes on.

Here are a few sites to help your child start drawing. Have fun with them yourwelf. You never know, you and your child might just be budding artists!

Let’s Draw The pictures on this page are free drawing lessons. You can purchase their books too.

Hello Kids Lots of fun drawing pages with step by step instructions

Draw with Uncle Fred Simple easy drawings any child can do. A great starter webiste for a young child wanting to learn how to draw.

Have fun and I'll see you back here Friday with some fun math sites.

posted by Joy Delgado
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Book of the Week: “There’s a Spider in My Sink!” By Bill Kirk, illustrated by Suzy Brown

To kick off my weekly book highlights, I have chosen Bill Kirk’s book “There’s a Spider in My Sink!” Who likes spiders? Or should I ask, who’s afraid of spiders? When you finish reading this book, you’ll understand spiders and have learned all kinds of facts and fun things you can impress your friends with.

This is a cute rhyming story. The illustrations are adorable. You can’t help but fall in love with this spider.

Bill took his book beyond reading with interesting factoids on each page. For example, did you know there are over 35,000 known species of spiders in the world and about 3,000 in the US ? Or that spiders don’t have ears? These are just two of the dozen or so facts you’ll read.

Bill didn’t stop there. He continued with a reference list with links, a glossary of spider terminology, a couple of word puzzles, even a song! Oh, and the answers to all the extra stuff at the back of the book.

This fun educating book is available from:
Guardian Angel Publishing
Buy it here today from Amazon.

If you’re interested in an interview with Bill and Ari, the spider in the story, pop over to the ZooprisePartyFiestaZoorpresa blog.

I'll be back Wednesday with some great teacher resources anyone can use to take books beyond reading.