Good story time books for 5-8 year olds

Story Time Read Alouds for 5-8 year olds

Cowboy:

Tornado Slim and the Magic Cowboy Hat

By Bryan Langdo

Vocabulary: Sarsparilla, five-alarm chili, sheriff, coyote, fiancé 

Magic, humor, fun illustrations.  This book easily kept all the kids attention.

Pirate:

Pirates Love Underpants

by Claire Freedman

Vocabulary: Long Johns, knickers, bloomers

This book is widely read, most of my kids had heard it before.  Most of the kids needed help to understand the strategy of cutting underwear elastic.  I had to stop and explain what was going on a lot, but the illustrations were cute and as always the kids were amused by the underpants theme.

Underwater Monster: 

The Pirate Cruncher 

by Jonny Duddle

Forshadowing:  I introduced this book talking about the consequences for stealing, I tried to prepare the kids for the tragic ending and that worked really well.  We talked about the story of King Midas and the dangers of greed.

I didn't want to read this book once I saw the ending, but out of the eleven books on this list, this was the favorite of the kids.  They especially enjoyed flipping back to the beginning and seeing the tentacles on the first page and the puppet strings on the fiddler revealed.

Dragons & Knights:

Dough Knights and Dragons 

by Dee Leone

Teaches Win-Win behavior

I had 5 dragon books to choose from and although there were two others I preferred as an adult, my children ALL chose this one.  The author really gets the kids attention with the donut element added into this book.  This was a great read aloud, the kids hadn't heard it before and they were all glued to the story.  

Obstacle Course/American Ninja Warrior

Ninja at the Pet Shop

by Luke Flowers

Great ninjas aren't always great Pet Store employees.  This is in the style of Amelia Bedelia.

Not many obstacle course theme books out there, but I read this because of the page that showed the ninja training course and it looked like the American Ninja Warrior course, so I went with it.  Lots of kids had read this already because it is Scholastic.  This book was fine, not as clever as some of the other books on the list, but it worked.

Robots and Friends:

Boy and Bot 

by Ame Dyckman

My Friend is Sad

by Mo Willems

Wheels:

Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

Monsters:

I Need My Monster

Ninjas:

the 3 Ninja Pigs

Mad Scientist:

Hazel Nutt the Mad Scientist

Vocabulary: Opera Singer, Vampire, Mummy, Steinway Piano, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Boogy Man, etc.

Prepare by teaching "What if you cross?" jokes.  I didn't read all the the dry humor in the text bubbles, the dry humor took a lot of explaining, so I just chose a few.  I also didn't get to point out all the cleverness, but once the kids understood the book was about mixed up monsters, they were more engaged and appreciative of basic story.  It worked well with our mad scientist theme.

UPSTART Review

I wrote a long review of this program when my son was half way through it, now he has graduated I am changing it to point out all the benefits of UPSTART.

Overall, if you spend 20 minutes a day doing this program with your child it will help them a lot.  It teaches both of you to make time to study on a daily basis.  If your child likes "screen time" why not use 20 minutes of it preparing them to learn each day?

The first section of UPSTART that teaches ABC's and 123's is so fun (about two months), but then the effectiveness drops off very quickly as the program turns to a whole word memorization method and this method unfortunately leaves about 20% of children behind while giving quick but limited success to other children.  Memorization always leads to limited success because it fails to give students the tools they need to read ALL words and teaches them to guess at words they don't have memorized (seriously, words are replaced with pictures in UPSTART!)  It also teaches pattern words which is another form of memorization.  This can inadvertently cause children to read right to left in order to locate the pattern first.  There is a ton of this in UPSTART.  Whole-word students will read short books very soon after they start studying, but their abilities will be measured by the number of words they memorize.  These "power" words are longer than phonic combinations and my children have found memorizing them very difficult because due to their engineering brains that can see shapes in all directions, they are still struggling to tell the difference between d and p and q and g among other things.

I believe that phonics is the superior way to learn to read.  Whole word can cause some students to label themselves as not smart and cause them to develop a strong aversion to reading because it is unreasonably difficult.  Phonics is intensive training of the brain to approach words left to right and an understanding of the approximately 50 phonic sounds in our language.  Students don't even have to know the letter names to do it, just 50 small things to memorize.  Once a child has learned all 50 they can read any english word (foreign words might still trip them up).  It takes a long time to learn all the phonics.  (My kids averaged 18 months although a lot of parents do it in 6 months to a year.)  The students may seem behind their peers, but the magic happens when they finish and all of the sudden their 5-10 sight word reading vocabulary becomes ALL words and their reading speed takes off because they are so confident and it never occurs to them to guess.  A popular and super effective phonic program* I know of teaches kids all the phonics in one hundred 20-40 minute lessons.  If I had spent the time on that program that I spent on UPSTART my child might be reading ALL words by now (maybe not because 4 is pretty young to start, 5 is better for most kids).  At the end of UPSTART my child knew one power word, "I" (5651 minutes, 270+ lessons).  He knew more of the ABC's than my other children did before Kindergarten, but not all of them.  I've seen most other children at graduation be able to read short simple books provided by the program using their memorized power words, but my son couldn't read anything.

During UPSTART, I noticed my son doing a lot of backward reading and guessing based on pictures, I started supplementing by doing a lot of left to right practice and phonics for every 20 minutes of UPSTART.  This was basically reteaching because he was getting confused by the method UPSTART used.  I considered quitting, but the folks at upstart where very encouraging and confident so we persisted.  Again, our basic takeaway was my son formed good study habits, knew about half the alphabet at the end and could count to 10.

I used phonics for my other 4 children.  My oldest reads 800 words per minute (way faster than me)!  My other three all read very quickly and above age level.  Most kids don't learn to read from the start with phonics, but it makes for better, faster readers.

After his UPSTART graduation we started FUNNIX an old, but powerful computer-based phonics program.   It isn't even a fraction as fancy as UPSTART, but the results are amazing, my son stopped guessing, stopped being frustrated and started reading a variety of words (not memorized patterns) with long and short vowels within a couple of weeks.  UPSTART prepared him for this(yay!), but FUNNIX was where he got the real tools he needed and where the presentation of material was in a simpler more logical progression.  Throw your sight words list in the garbage and get a phonics book or computer program.

Also recommended
*Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann

The Best Gluten Free Cinnamon Roll

Gooey, cinnamony, cream cheesy goodness!

 I love a soft, gooey cinnamon roll more than anyone I know, but unfortunately, most cinnamon rolls are dry and hard to choke down, especially gluten free ones (despite the raves the recipes always have posted with them).  On Christmas Eve, a dear friend of mine who owns a restaurant saw me and my husband out on a walk and offered to send us home with two 8" cinnamon rolls for our kids to have Christmas morning (as the restaurant obviously wouldn't be open and selling them.)  My family normally won't touch cinnamon rolls, so I was about to pass, but my husband took a look at those gorgeous gigantic cinnamon rolls and said "of course!"  

As we walked home I started planning out the ultimate gluten free cinnamon roll recipe in my head.  I was going to make one exactly like we had in our hands or better.   I threw some ingredients in the bowl that afternoon, rolled up the cinnamon roll at dinnertime and baked it just before I went to bed.  Sure enough, Christmas morning dawned with the best gluten free cinnamon roll ever!  All the cinnamon rolls I've had in the last 7 years have been 1 star, but this was 5 stars for sure!  The long rise time make these rolls super soft and light.  The eggs and xanthan gum mimic the gluten in traditional cinnamon rolls.

my roll dough in a 5x14" rectangle, spread with melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon

starting to roll the jumbo cinnamon roll.

when you get to the end of one strip of dough, set the cinnamon roll
down at the beginning of the next and keep rolling, pinching the dough together at the seam.

When you are done transfer your giant cinnamon roll to a lightly greased 8" cake pan.   Gently press down with a spatula to fill the whole pan.

All ready to let it rise 4-6 hours.

gluten free in the foreground and gluten-filled in the background,
they looked nearly identical, but the gluten free had the best texture!  

voila!

makes a great Christmas breakfast!  I cut it in fourths
because as you can see it was humongous.

The background shows my inspiration jumbo cinnamon rolls of the gluten-filled variety.
 Then in front you see my fabulous gluten free cinnamon roll hiding under
a generous amount of cream cheese frosting.

Best Ever Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls

These are slowrise cinnamon rolls like you get at the mall.  I like to start these in the afternoon, roll them out at dinner time, and bake them at bedtime.  I frost them in the morning, reheat them a bit in the microwave, and eat them for breakfast.  

You could also start them at dinner, roll them up at bedtime, and then get up early and bake them in the morning.  Every step is EASY, they are just spread out a lot.

~4 large cinnamon rolls or 1 jumbo cinnamon roll
12 hrs, prep time 18 minutes bake time

dough
1 tsp active or rapid rise yeast

1 1/3 Tbs warm water (115 degrees)

2 2/3 tbs butter, melted

1/4 cup milk, scalded (nearly boiled)

2 2/3 Tbs sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg, well beaten plus

3 egg whites or 1 ½ eggs, well beaten.

1 1/2 cups flour (I used the Costco all purpose blend which includes xanthan gum) 

½ Tbs xanthan gum or onlly ¾ tsp if using a flour mix already containing x.g.

filling
2 2/3 Tbs butter, melted
1/4 cup brown sugar plus more if needed to thoroughly cover the dough
2 tsp cinnamon plus more if needed to evenly cover the sugar

frosting
1 1/2 Tbs butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 oz cream cheese
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 Tbs milk (2/3 Tbs-2 1/2Tb)

Soften yeast in warm water.  Combine melted butter and scalded milk.  Stir in sugar, salt and eggs.  Cool.  Stir in softened yeast and flour.  Cover; allow to rise in cool place for 4 to 6 hours (room temp in the winter is fine).  Turn out onto lightly floured board roll to cover with a light dusting of flour and gently form into a long rectangle (mine was about 5x14").  Dough is very soft and should remain so, if it is sticking to your hands or roller you can dust with flour or slightly moisten your fingers.  Cover the rectangle with 2 2/3 Tbs melted butter.  cover the butter with a generous coating of brown sugar (so no roll dough is showing through.)  Then sprinkle with a generous amount of cinnamon.  

for a jumbo cinnamon roll:
Cut the rectangle into strips about 1 1/4" tall.  Roll each piece loosely, as you finish one strip of dough move it to the end of another strip and keep rolling so that you make one gigantic roll.  Set the roll into a lightly greased 8" cake pan.  if the roll doesn't come all the way to the edges of the pan you can flatten it a bit with a spatula.  

four smaller cinnamon rolls:
for smaller cinnamon rolls, cut the rectangle into 4 strips and then roll up each cinnamon roll and place in a lightly greased 8" square pan.

Allow to rise in cool place 5-6 hours.  Bake at 375F approximately 15-18 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cover with foil after 10 mins if needed to prevent burning, bottom of rolls should be golden brown.  

Cool slightly and frost.  I highly reccomend reheating a bit in the microwave before eating!

Unique Graham Cracker Houses

My kids never seem to want to decorate a regular house, they always want something unique.  I just use a serrated bread knife and carve whatever shape they ask for out of the crackers.  I glue them together with melted sugar that I have heated on medium heat in a frying pan.  It works like hot glue.  This year I had two boat requests, so I made some blue butter cream frosting as well as the traditional royal icing and this is what we ended up with.

Flower garden with wheelbarrow and gated fence, daughter age 10

candy and graham crackers

Gummy Bear House, my son age 4

Chinese Dragon, son age 13 "Scary Christmas!"

Fishing Boat, son age 8 "Fishing You A Merry Christmas!"

Viking Ship, daughter age 15, since we live in a town settled by Icelanders,
viking ships are kind of a special around here.

Candy Cany Sleighs with PopTarts

As a cub scout leader I am doing activities for the boys once a week, but the girls have only had two activities since school got out in May and so we did a Christmas Party to get them all together!  For the craft we made candy cane sleighs using Poptarts.  I had planned to use the Poptarts in the silver packing, but the girls opened them all up and we just covered them in plastic wrap and I liked how it ended up looking snowy just like a real sleigh!

Letter F preschool activities

Letter F (my four year old requested fire trucks for the theme, so this is what we did!)

Letter F torn paper fire (thanks measured mom.com)



Bean Pit Dig (we reuse this with every letter)

six cards inspired by action alphabet.com, I added more

Found a frog!

Since I'm a Lego teacher, I have baseplates galore and this worked well,
but you could build F without baseplates too.

We have a poster of this guy colored in rainbow scribbles, with his mouth cut wide open to gobble up letter items like feathers, footballs, fruit, fly swatters, and all the other fun things the kids brought!  You do have to be careful the first day to make it comical and not scary, but then it becomes a highlight of the preschool day!

midi and lyrics from Boy Scout Trail, fun hand motions can be found on youtube.  If the kids learn the hand motions they will have a lot of fun with this.  Then you can sing the verse substituting the hand motions instead of singing the words

Lyrics:

Late one night
When we were all in bed
Old mother Leary left a lantern in the shed
And when the cow kicked it over
She winked her eye and said,
There'll be a HOT time on the old town tonight.
FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!

Backwards Version (optional)
Night one late
When bed in all were we
Old Leary mother left a shed the lantern in.
And when the kick cowed it over
She eyed her wink and said,
There'll be an old time on the hot town tonight.
ERIF, ERIF, ERIF!

Our Favorite Fire Fighter books and a sparkly fish book for the girls:

such a silly book, preschoolers love this!

This board book is always the first request, it just looks so fun to four year olds.

Popular with the girls!

Graham Tracker Fire Trucks:

Double stuff frosting gives you enough to "glue" on the ladder, window, and both wheels.
Cut the Dot candy almost completely in half and attach it that way.
Cut Fruit by the Foot tape in half to make the ladder and rungs.

Fire Truck Paper Craft (thanks to LearnToCreateLove.com! and my teenagers who cut them out!)

I love ABC party preschool!

We made Friendship Fudge at the same time we glued our trucks together (I should have made only a half recipe or skipped it since we already had a snack, although they did enjoy squishing it!)

1/2 cup of butter

4 oz cream cheese

1 tsp vanilla extract

2/3 c unsweetened cocoa powder

1 lb powdered sugar

1 gallon-size Ziploc bag

add to the bag and then let all the friends squeeze and knead until the fudge is done!  We practiced counting by squishing the bag ten times per kid

Finished Friendship Fudge is still a bit sticky,
scoop samples with a spoon.

Basic ABC Plan: (This takes 2 1/2 hours)

Gathering: 
Sounds: Dig for letter of the day items (or could do a sound tray or sound toy box)
Art: Paint something so it can be dry by the time preschool is over, usually introduces theme of the day.

Writing: write the letter in as many different ways as possible I usually do about 5 ways, but with Lego we just rebuild it.  Trace in sugar tray, chalk writing, iPad coloring, shaving cream, trace it in sand, form it out of noodles, form it out of Legos, trace it in pudding, etc.

Circle Time: 
Phonics: Starfall letter video
Sound bombardment: Feed the sound monster (each kid brings items beginning with the sound of the day and we let the "sound monster" gobble them up and spit them out)
Literacy: Read 2 books (usually more once we get started)
Rhyming & Music: Sing the song or learn the nursery rhyme

Glue: the letter of the day together

Cook: make a snack, excellent for counting practice!

Playtime: