This week, Susie and I had our first outing to the Louisville Zoo together. I love to connect reading a book with a new adventure, so for my first "Feed Me Books Friday" post I decided to write about Curious George and First Words at the Zoo. I read this little board book (click the link to see why I'm board book only at this age) to Sus several times before we left for the zoo in the morning, and we've been reading it a few times since. At 10 months, she doesn't necessarily get the connection, but it won't be too long before she will! At any rate, it's a great vocabulary builder; my husband was reading this to her the next day and she started saying "Dorge, Dorge"!
One thing I really like about Curious George and First Words at the Zoo, is that there is no story, just pictures labeled with words or phrases. Perfect opportunity for mom or dad to be the storyteller! I love to make the story up differently as we turn the sturdy colorful pages:
"OH NO!!! Curious George took the zoo keeper's keys! He's gonna let out the animals!!!"
I hope I'm teaching my child to be expressive and love words. Books are so much a part of who I am, and I find myself quoting bits of children's books when the opportunity presents itself. Here are a couple quotes (that I remember) from our zoo trip:
"Look Susie!! Look at the Elephants! There's a Mama bear elephant, Papa bear elephant and Baby bear elephant all holding each other's tails!". . . then realized I was mixing my animal terms because I was referring to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Clearly, in my mind, "mama bear, papa bear and baby bear" are universal terms to be applied to any creatures that appear in that order.
"Look at the tiger, Sus! Look at his big teethy!!! Is he scary? No. . . 'to the tiger at the zoo, Susie-Q just said "pooh pooh"'!" quoting from Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans.
What books have slipped into your vocabulary? Do you find yourself speaking "book talk" to your kids?
Check out the other recommendations at Silly Eagle Books!
How fun! We went to the zoo this week too. I'll have to dig out our zoo books and read them to the kids. I almost always forget to link outings with book reading. We usually just pick our favorite and read it a thousand times :)
ReplyDeleteOne of my son's favorite books is Chugga Chugga Choo Choo by Lewis. It starts, "Sun's up. Morning's here." We say that quite often now first thing in the morning.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter and I always find ourselves saying, "Now it is night. Time for all dogs to go to sleep." From Go, Dog, Go--I love your use of the Madeline quote! So perfect!
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up!
I thought I recognized the title of your post! I just read Madeline to my girls, and they love it! I'm looking forward to visits to the zoo this summer. :)
ReplyDeleteI wish I could thinkof quotes more often. Usually I just call Mercedes names from books... "Get over here, Elizabeth Jane!"... because at this age, she is definitely one hundred percent Elizabeth Jane.
ReplyDeleteI always quote from "Where the Wild Things Are" for some reason. My kids don't get as much enjoyment out of it as me though......lol
ReplyDeleteAlso, "Goodnight Moon" is a great one to quote from.
Sarah -- I'm with you. I say to Susie "I'll eat you up, I love you so".
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