Gone Bananas for Gorillas

A good friend of mine recently started a blog, and I have just been blown away by all of her creativity and enthusiasm for educating her children through fun and engaging activities at home this summer. I quickly complimented her by leaving a comment on her blog posts about what a true SUPER MOM she is....as a mother of 3, and her youngest is only a couple months old! I begged her to share her materials with me, and she did! Thanks, Christina! We started with a book that has always been one of Eli's favorites, Good Night, Gorilla.

All week long, we have read the book and have done several activities about gorillas and other zoo animals this week. At the library, we checked out several picture books and even a non-fiction book about gorillas. Eli has enjoyed all of the gorilla stories and has learned some interesting facts about them, such as their diet. In the car, we have been listening to the Magic Tree House book, Good Morning, Gorillas. He listens so intently and talks about the story after we've gotten out of the car. We cut out cards with each of the animals in the story on them and did some sorting activities. I even had him use the animal cards to "act out" the story. We focused on the word "zoo," and Eli now recognizes it, reads it, and spells it. We even practiced drawing the letter "z." Eli especially enjoyed the coloring pages

and making "banana treats."

These treats were supposed to be an easy project...I thought. Not that easy to make or eat, but tasty just the same.

It was fun to do all of these activities with Eli, and he liked doing them too. I am planning to make our next book pick and decide on the activities in the next day or two.

We also (as I alluded to earlier...) went to the library again this past week. The favorites picks from the last batch include:

This book was one we picked after reading my friend's blog again. The story quickly gained Eli's attention, and we read it more than any other book we checked out last time. The story has a fun sequence of events and each time the little girl goes a new place with her mother on her errands, she adds something to her pocketbook. Eli adored the step-by-step story and insisted that we recheck it out this time around.

This delightful "call and response" style story has 1-2 words on each page. The entire dialogue between these two boys who meet and become friends is very simple and is fun to act out. Eli loved dialoguing in this style with me while reading the story and even later in the car. A toddler favorite!

Well, that is it from our neck of the reading woods. I can't wait to find our favorites from this batch of library books and try out a new book of the week.

Hard to believe that I head back to work in just 2 short weeks, and Eli will start in 3 weeks. My baby big boy is going to be part of the preschool at the school I work at. Like always, he'll come to school with me, I'll work a half day, and then we'll head home together a little after noon. The only difference this time, is that he'll be a student. Crazy and exciting!