Usborne Lift-the-Flap books feature glorious illustrations, lively and humourous text, a highly creative use of flaps, as well as providing lots of straightforward information. Ages 2+.

Kids will love learning about bug life cycles, habitats, adaptations, and more with activities such as A Ladybug Year, Bugs on the Go, Mouthpart Match-Up, Habitat Maps, and Butterfly Sense. Includes engaging cross-curricular activities, learning centers, reproducible mini-books, poems, games, graphic organizers, literature connections, and much more. Plus, a big, colorful interactive poster! Book jacket.

Kids will love learning about penguin life cycles, anatomy, feeding habits and more with fun projects and activities, including instructions on how to create 15 movable models and manipulatives. Illustrations.

For toddlers, every storytime can be a new adventure, while art activities are important for developing impulse control, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor dexterity in the hands. Hopkins’ new book fuses them together. Designed for children ages 1 to 3 years old, the book’s 52 storytimes promote pre-reading skills such as print motivation, vocabulary, and narrative skills. Based on themes familiar to children, including bears, bugs, springtime,clothing and hats, flowers and gardens, weather, music, pets, transportation, pirates, and many more, each storytime includes a list of books, action songs or rhymes along with their words, a flannelboard experience, plus instruction for two to three art activities. This complete toddler storytime resource also includes An introduction which discusses the differences between art activities and craft activities, a toddler’s ability in creating art, and why children this age should be exposed to art activities Advice for using different art mediums, such as food, plus important safety considerations Pointers on conducting playful yet educational storytimes Tips for finding inexpensive art materials, with a list of recommended supplies to keep on hand More than 100 drawings, all easy to reproduce and modify Weblinks to “Artsy Helper Sheets,” downloadable supplements complete with phrases, tips, and tricks that inform parents and caregivers about the benefits of doing art activities with toddlers Pick up Hopkins' book and you'll be ready to conduct a storytime within moments!

Informational kinds of reading are crucial in every lesson. This book looks at how we can encourage children from the very beginning to think of themselves as young researchers using skills and strategies for clear purposes. It argues that the creative practitioner nurtures children's sense of wonder and curiosity about the world and all its phenomena. Packed full of advice on how to use the most stimulating and exciting texts and the liveliest approaches, the book celebrates the good practice of teachers and student teachers in a large number of classroom case studies. The content includes: * a summary of the recent developments and a framework of principles to inform good practice in this challenging aspect of literacy * chapters concentrating on particular age groups - beginning with the nursery and ending with the later primary years - and thus taking up an essentially developmental approach * an assessment of recent research and how findings can be put to practical and creative use in the classroom. A central message is that children benefit from collaborating with teachers and peers at every stage of finding out. The spoken language energises informational reading and writing, making the sharing of the fruits of children's research highly enjoyable. This book will inspire you and lead to the very best practice.