In honor of Children's Book Week, Sylvan Dell Publishing is offering parents free access (a $243 value) to all 35 of their science, math and nature themed picture books as eBooks for 30 days.
To get yours:
Go to: www.SylvanDellPublishing.com.
Click the "English eBooks" link on the sidebar in the top right of the page.
Above the book covers, it says "Enter trial codes here" in small print. Click "here."
Type 4BEWSV and click "Validate Access Code."
Click on any book you would like to read with your child.
Repeat process anytime until June 14.
Vanessa Fisher, Garden City librarian and circulation supervisor, suggested five books to help you and your child get reading:
1. "In the Tall, Tall Grass" by Denise Fleming (infants)
2. "When Sophie Get Angry - Really, Really Angry" by Molly Bang (infants)
3. "Ten, Nine, Eight" by Molly Bang (ages 2-5)
4. "What's On My Head?" by Margaret Miller (infants)
5. "Linking Language" by Robert Rockwell, Debra Reichert and Bill Searcy (kids' language and literacy activities, geared to parents and teachers)
On your mark, get set - read!
Looking to expand from Hide-and-Go-Seek and the Hokey Pokey? Try playing a different game that more aptly celebrates Children's Book Week, a weeklong celebration May 12-18 of reading with children sponsored by The Children's Book Council.
Reading with your children helps develop complex brain activities and uses memory, symbol recognition, hearing and speaking. It also provides an important emotional bond.
Here are some tips from children's author Terry Pierce on using books for fun and teaching beyond reading:
• Talk about what you've read. Ask the question: Why do you think the author wrote this? Try to create a connection between your child and the author.
Talk about the pictures in the book. Let your child have time to soak in the details: colors, layout, style and hidden details.
• Bake what you've read about. Take a story such as "Blackberry Banquet" (Terry Pierce), "Burro's Tortillas" (Terri Fields), "The Gingerbread Man," or "Pizza Party!" (Grace Maccarone) and do a follow-up cooking activity. Kids can help pick a recipe, go grocery shopping and help cook, bake and eat.
• Draw artistic creativity from a book. Pull out crayons, colored pencils, chalks and paints. You and your child can copy your favorite illustration, or design a different book cover. Ask your child if she had made the cover for the book, how would she draw it?
• Springboard into writing. Help your child write a letter to a favorite author or illustrator, telling what part of the story they liked the most. Authors and illustrators love this.
Help your child start a journal of their own, or write a diary entry for their favorite character. For younger children, let them dictate letters, stories or journal entries to you.
• Extend the story. Read books about places you can visit, such as the zoo (" 'Twas the Day Before Zoo Day," by Catherine Ipcizade,) a salt marsh ("A Day in the Salt Marsh" by Kevin Kurtz) or the ocean ("Water Beds: Sleeping in the Ocean" by Gail Langer Karwoski). Explore these areas and compare what you see with what you read about. Are they similar? Different? How so?
Jeanne Huff: 377-6483
