The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is probably a classic picture book for kids. It is a simple story about the number of food items a very hungry caterpillar eats each day of the week until he finally suffers a stomachache, eats a leaf and creates a cocoon from which he emerges two weeks later as a beautiful butterfly. While it can be considered no different from any other counting book and one that teaches the days of the week, it is made special by the ingenuity of the design of the book.

It is difficult not to notice the hole in each page as the caterpillar literally worms its way through the pages of the book or the pages which increase in length as the food items increase. Not only can kids put their finger into the hole that the caterpillar makes through the food he eats, they can have fun counting the unusual food it eats each day as well.  As we follow this unusual caterpillar through his insatiable appetite we are not too surprised by the stomachache but the magical butterfly that appears from the cocoon makes following the journey of the caterpillar a somewhat satisfying experience.

My kids enjoyed the book when I read it to them when they were 2, and enjoyed when I read it to them a year later and now, they still enjoy it even though they know the story very very well! Definitely a must have!

What do I recommend this book for? To teach:

• 
  
  numbers


• 
  
  days of the week


• 
  
  cause and consequence


• 
  
  life cycle (although you might want to read why the caterpillar emerged from a cocoon and not a chrysalis here)

It just happened that one day, I was wondering what I could do to check my children's understanding of the books we read. It wasn't like I planned it or was thinking too hard about it, but I naturally asked questions as I read the book. Now we call it "Question time!" and they love to play this after each book we read. Knowing that there is a "Question time" segment after we say the end makes the experience of the book last longer as well as acts as an incentive so that they pay close attention as the story is read because they never now what the question will be. :)

Here are some questions and activities we did after reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar .

1. 
   
   What are some of the food the caterpillar ate?


2. 
   
   Why do you think it ate so much?


3. 
   
   Why do you think he had a stomach-ache?


4. 
   
   How do you think the caterpillar felt before he got into his cocoon?


5. 
   
   How long was the caterpillar in the cocoon?


6. 
   
   Let's see if we can remember what the caterpillar ate on  Monday...etc


7. 
   
   Let's use our fingers and say the days of the week.


8. 
   
   Look at a calendar and point out the days


9. 
   
   When watching cartoons, write the days a particular cartoon is shown on the calendar. So the kid can identify with days.


10. 
    
    Got a book on animals and their young.


11. 
    
    Got a book- Frogs by Gail Gibbons - to show that different animals have different lifecycles. (This I did when they were a little older)


12. 
    
    We tried to see how a caterpillar would grow into a butterfly - but it was too tedious and the kids lost interest after a week. So I'll keep this field experiement for when they a little older and can truly appreciate the meaning of delayed gratification. We put the caterpillar back into the wild and hopefully it survived to become a beautiful butterfly.

Happy Reading!!!

In Little Monster Did It! by Helen Cooper, a little girl misbehaves and becomes a nuisance at home with the arrival of a younger sibling. The story begins with her parents presenting a soft toy - Little Monster - to her before they left to the hospital. Upon their return with the baby, things go terribly wrong in the house which the girl insists was caused by Little Monster. In a charming and indirect way, Cooper gives the reader the opportunity to distinguish what is really happening from what the girl claims to have happened. The colourful full page illustration makes reading and solving the Little Monster Did It! mystery enjoyable. Finally Cooper resolves the tension between the siblings by allowing Little Monster to appreciate having the little baby around. Ironically, after all the trouble, Little Monster Did It! - he ultimately helped her accept the baby.

I chanced upon this book at a timely moment. My elder child was becoming increasingly jealous of his younger sibling and was being somewhat mischievous at home - reminding me of a lovable little monster! So when I read the book, the elder child could identify with the mischief that Little Monster came up with and subsequently became his favourite book. He was so fond of it, he decided to remember the words in the book and read it all by himself. He enjoyed playing detective and spotting the discrepancies between truth and fiction by looking at the pictures and figured out that Little Monster was just a convenient scapegoat for the girl. The younger one enjoyed describing what Little Monster supposedly did from looking at the illustration and saw Little Monster as literally a monster!

What do I think this book is useful for?

• 
  
  Teaching kids what's acceptable behaviour and what's not


• A lesson on telling the truth


• Understanding the need to accept change - and that change can be good

Here are some things we did while we read the book and after reading the book. I believe it helps to build their reading, comprehension and speech.

1. Pretended to be a detective and spot where the girl was in the picture and find evidence to show who actually did it.


2. Describe what was happening in the picture.


3. Ask questions to help the child empathise with the characters in the book. For example, "How do you think the girl felt when she heard the baby crying/when she realised that she had to share space with the baby? Why do you think the Daddy was upset?


4. Ask questions to help the child make judgements. Do you think it was a good idea to mess the kitchen? Why?


5. Most important questions - at least for me - Do you think the girl achieved anything by misbehaving? and What happened at the end of the story? What do you think is the lesson in this story?


6. This is what we did after the story. I used Little Monster Did It! to teach them to be responsible for their actions. Here's what I did which helped me manage some of the difficult moments. If either of the kids were up to some mischief, I'd go "And who did this? Is it Little Monster???" And they'd say, "Little Monster didn't do it. I did it". It helped the kids take responsibility for the things they did. At the same time, I couldn't get very angry even if I wanted to! ;)

Here's to Little Monster Did It! A fun read for moms, dads and kids!

What Makes Kids Want to READ?

When I decided to review the books that I have read to my children, it was intended as a means to share some motherly wisdom as well as allow me to keep in touch with my love for reviewing literature. So when I put up the widget displaying the books my kids enjoyed, it was meant as a sneak preview for my visitors to check what they can expect to find next or what was already reviewed on the blog. What I didn't expect was the excitement when my kids saw it! They weren't excited about the widget of course because they hardly know what a widget is!

The excitement stemmed from being able to recognise the books displayed on the screen. Such amazement and glee! For a while I didn't understand what the fuss was about until they began to compete with each other on who could say first the title of the book being displayed. *roll eyes* Yes...I rolled my eyes too. But what was interesting was that these were books that I had read only once to them with the exception of Little Monster Did It! That was my son's favorite and he would read it over and over and over....(you get the picture I'm sure. I'll let you know why it's his personal favourite when I review the book in my next post.) For now, let me not digress from my main intention of posting how I stumbled on another great way to motivate kids to read. And I realised that they were even more excited because they recognised these books. So when my son asked if I had done this wonderful thing of displaying the book sthey liked and I said yes, he was all ready to suggest even more books for me to include.

TA-DA!! That was when I was struck by the sheer power of this widget! I could get my kids to WANT to READ just so they could see the books on display on the computer. Now how cool is that? And they wanted me to display only books they liked. So you can assume then that the rest of the book reviews will probably be ones which they like very very much. Bingo! BUT I'll try to spare you the ordeal some of the books put me through and do a review of those except that I won't be displaying the book covers in my widget. I have to keep my promise - it's part of walking the talk as a parent. So I hope you'll thank my kids for being my censorship board and save you the trouble of finding good books to read to your kids. Now all you need to do is lookat the widget and find the title of the book reviewed in my blog! For me, I find motivating my kids such an eye-opening experience that I cannot fail to agree with the many SAHM out there that this job has no idiot-proof guide book. You just learn along the way....and some just makes your day - like this little widget treat!