5 A Day Books: Eric Carle

This last week was a roller-coaster, with packing, saying goodbye to the hubby, and adjusting to all of that craziness. I think that is why I chose the song books last week because I knew that if push came to shove I could just sing to baby-even if the books weren't in my hand.

Well it is a new week and I am being overly ambitious! I decided to do an Eric Carle theme for this week 5 A Day Books over at The Imagination Tree. I think his books are great for preschoolers and advanced toddlers. His illustrations are always colorful. They normally have repetition and teach a theme (time, color, or days of the week). However for my 10 month old, who has difficult time sitting still, I don't know how much he will enjoy them. I am fully intending to not read the books word-for-word but make sure to keep the themes and  rhymes/cadence in tact. I am planning a very hungry caterpillar theme for his 1st birthday, so I figured I should at least read him the book.

Here is the line-up:

1) The Grouchy Ladybug: A grouchy ladybug meets a friendly one and starts to pick a fight. When the challenge is accepted he says the bug isn't big enough to fight. Then every hour he goes to find a fight. After an important lesson in humility in 12 hours he ends up right where he started knowing the importance of being nice. Lots of repetition in this one, which is good because it can be wordy.

2) The Very Hungry Caterpillar: World famous book about a caterpillar is so hungry so he eats his way through various things throughout the days of the week. In the end he obviously becomes a beautiful butterfly. Can't wait for his birthday party. So many cute ideas: decorations, crafts, caterpillar cupcake cake, and party foods being the same ones he eats-including little hole poked through.

3)The Mixed Up Chameleon: This is one of the anchor text I did when my older son and I made 3D chameleons. It is a funny book about a chameleon who is bored and inspired by a colorful zoo. He wishes to be different animals and his wishes come true-well only part of them. He ends up with all different body parts, but when he can't get the fly with his elephant trunk he realizes being a chameleon has it's benefits. Baby likes it when I read it and act the animals and use big voices.

4) 1,2,3 To The Zoo: This board book is actually wordless. It is a zoo train that counts animals as the train car grows. This is the book I am having "A" read to baby. Since it has no words he can make them up. I talked to him the importance of repetition and being able to repeat the same words the following night. So basically he is say, "5 bears, 6 giraffes," etc.

So cute: Happy Mommy Moment!

5) Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?: (This is actually written by Bill Martin Jr. but it is illustrated by Eric Carle so I included it). This book is perfect for little ones!!! It is simple text with repetition and a great cadence. Each page ask an animal what it sees and the response is the animal on the next page. It introduces colors and animals. I am always amazed how the author chose to make some animals realistic (green frog) and then others fantastical (blue horse).

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