24 August 2010

What can you see?

One of our favourite types of book at the moment are 'first word books' and in particular - First hundred words. This book is popular because the illustrator is the same person who illustrates 'the Apple Tree Farm books' and the First Experiences Books and my children love Stephen Cartwright's illustrations!

This type of book is one of the types of book that grows with your child. To start with they enjoy picking out the odd words that they know and pointing to the "big" items on the page, then as they get older they can actually hunt (and start remembering!) the items to find on each page. They can also look at the picture in more detail, describe what is happening and spot the more subtle things. It is also great for children who are learning to read as the words are printed underneath the picture so they can start to recognise the sight words.

The book has scenes from around the house; the living room, getting dressed, eating breakfast in the kitchen (my children find the broken egg and the burnt toast most amusing), tidying up (uh-oh what is going to happen to Dad's plate?), bathtime and bedtime, in the community - the park, the street and the swimming pool and having a birthday party. The swimming pool and changing room pages show body parts, whilst the shopping pages illustrate colours and finally the very last page has a numbers 1-5.

We love this book and I am sure you will too!

2 comments:

Heather Bestel said...

I love Apple Tree Farm!!! We used to read the stories together - we loved that the farmer was a woman. We would try to find the little duck on every page. Enjoying your blog xx

Elaine said...

Thanks for the comment - those books are just great aren't they.

If you aren't reading this post having come from it there are more book posts at todays carnival - http://www.playingbythebook.net/2010/08/31/british-mummy-bloggers-carnival-books-and-play/ take a look!