My best of 2020 | Picture Books

[ my image - South Wales December 2019 ]

I've reviewed and shared a lot of books this year.  Here, I'm going to pick out a selection of the best.  I'm not going to review them all over again for this, instead I'm going to share the brilliant cover illustrations.  You can find full reviews for all of these either on @allaboutstories on Facebook or here on the blog in my "What I read" posts from February, April, June, August and October.

BOOK REVIEW | Pierre the Maze Detective

Pierre the Maze Detective and the great colouring adventure by Hiro Kamigaki and IC4DESIGN.

This is like a crazy mash-up of Where's Wally and the fiddliest colouring book you could imagine, but it's brilliant...

A Story Cafe | 10 Little Rubber Ducks

Today's story - 10 Little Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle

Families arrived at Story Cafe today to find lots of rubber ducks and numbers to play with:

BOOK REVIEW | Goodnight Spaceman

Goodnight Spaceman by Michelle Robinson and Nick East

Perfect timing - British astronaut Tim Peake is up in space and he's collaborated with the publishers of this wonderful rhyming story about two children who's Dad is in space.  There's a letter from Tim Peake at the start of the book inspiring readers and their families to look at the stars and wonder.

BOOK REVIEW | Veronica

Veronica by Roger Duvoisin

This is a lovely book, hard cover, tape down the spine and lovely thick paper pages.  It's about a hippopotamus who wants to be different.  Veronica just doesn't stand out amongst all the other hippos in the river, she feels like no-one notices her, and she wants to be "famous".

BOOK REVIEW | Miro's Magic Animals

Miro's Magic Animals by Antony Penrose.

Joan Miro was a surrealist artist from Barcelona in Spain.  The author, Antony Penrose, knew Miro as a child - he was a friend of the  author's parents, who were also surrealists artists but from Sussex in England.  Here is Miro in his later years.

BOOK REVIEW | Pass it On

I loved this book the moment I opened the package.  The title words on the front cover are embossed so you can feel them, and it's printed on beautiful thick pages.  The illustrations immediately reminded me of picture books from a long time ago.  The font is used imaginatively, different sizes to show emphasis, in a similar way to that done in Dr Seuss books.

A Story Cafe | Aaaarrgghh! Spider

Today we read Aaaarrgghh! Spider! by Lydia Monks.

The children and families played with a communication friendly space based on the story when they arrived...

Stories and Schemas | enveloping

Most little ones like the packaging much better than the toy inside, after all, look what you can do with an empty box...  You can put it on your head like T in this picture for instance!  Here's some mostly visual examples of enveloping schema in action and some stories that go alongside.

Covering the whole paper in paint is a good example of enveloping, here she covered the plate, the potato we were printing with and the toy horse!

A Story Cafe | Transitions to school

Today we read How do dinosaurs go to school by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague, and Dinosaur Roar by Paul and Henrietta Stickland, along with Dinosaurs love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort.  I wanted to use transitions to school as our theme, and dinosaurs as most 3-4 year olds love dinosaurs!!

A brilliant rhyming story, revealing the REAL reason why the dinosaurs become extinct... hilarious!

A Story Cafe | The Tiger who came to tea

It was our latest Story Cafe today at Preschool.  I chose one of my all time favourites this time - The Tiger who came to Tea by Judith Kerr.

I remember reading Judith Kerr's When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit at school - Judith Kerr writes of her own experiences in wartime Germany and an escape from the Nazis.  The Tiger who came to Tea was published in 1968, so it's a bit older than me, but has withstood the test of time.

Book Review | What will I be?

What will I be is written by Richard Sinclair and illustrated by Jon Lycett-Smith.

Rainbow Cafe | How do dinosaurs go to school?

We held our last Rainbow Story Cafe of the school year today.  Lots of the children are moving on to Infant and Primary schools, and lots of them are really interested in dinosaurs at the moment.  So, for this one I decided to combine school transitions and dinosaurs with the story "How do dinosaurs go to school?" by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague.

We read the story, then in our family groups, we made some story props. Here's what we made:

Understanding the world | a growing story

In April, we sent for a pack of seed potatoes to grow with the children.  We had visions of enough potatoes appearing in the soil to have our own market stall outside - read on to see how it actually worked out...

Here's what we did -

Sharing Learning 3 | Posting a Postcard

Another idea for sharing the children's learning with home.  I bought some postcards showing places in our local area where the children have been.  Each child chose a postcard and "wrote" their card - some of the children gave meaning to the marks they made and talked about what they were "writing".  We talked about what we were going to do and what might happen.

Sharing Children's Learning II | A Special Card

How about another special way to share the children's learning with home?

At Christmas the children were invited to play with a little Christmas tree on a low table.  We filled some baskets with decorations and the children spent ages decorating their own little tree.

As they worked we took lots of photos.  Later when I looked at the photos I thought - Christmas - Christmas cards - how about a Christmas card about their tree decorating activity?  So this was the result:

I made the image on a great online photo editing program called PicMonkey.

Then I printed them out on some thin card, folded them in half - and the result was a lovely card to send home showing what the children had been doing.

So why am I talking about cards in a blog about stories? Becsuse every bit of the children's learning is a new story for them, and if we can get them talking anout their learning at home then they are building narrative and story telling skills.

Look out for more special ways to share the children's learning with their homes and families here in the future.

For more ideas and inspiration see the It's All About Stories facebook page here

and my pinterest boards here

Enjoy!

Sharing Children's Learning I - Zig-zag books

I wanted to share an old idea of mine from a few years ago which we have started using again recently.  For special occasions or wow moments or brilliant bits of learning that the children are involved in, we make them a special zig-zag book to take home and share with their family

And here's how we did it...