Creating a Preschool Library at Home

Books, books, books!  I absolutely LOVE books.  

One of the main things I want to cultivate in Sweet Pea is a love of reading, and to do that, I started reading to her out of the womb.  However, now that she's 3, I am a thinking more about what exactly am I reading to her, which brought some big questions on my mind.

How do I find good books for her right now?   

How do I decide what books are worth spending money on?  

When visiting the library, how do I find books that are right for my kiddo? 

I am so thankful Mother Goose Time makes it so easy to find books that are just right for us and our unit study.  Over the past year, we have transitioned more from board books to regular story books with the help of MGT.

Here's how to add some great books to your home library!

This year we have 4 teacher guides each focusing on a main unit within a thematic unit.  For example, our Thematic Unit for this month is My Amazing Body with our first main unit being a focus on Body Parts. 

 

Inside the front pages of the colorful teacher guide is an overview of the objectives and what the 5 lessons entail, including Story Time books!  See the blue box below. 

Look at each Story Time column in your 4 teacher guides and make a list of the books.  There are usually 8-10 books listed.  Since MGT was making an emphasis on using these particular books, I wanted to make sure we added them to Sweet Pea's library collection at home.

You can definitely use Amazon to find these awesome books, but another site is called Thrift books where you can buy gently used books.  That's how I ordered 6 of the 8 books below and I spent less than $25! (that's a big hardback Eric Carle book by the way that I ordered!)

Here' a link to a 15% off coupon that is good for 14 days from 8/31/17.

15% off COUPON

MGT gives some great ideas on how to use the book besides just reading the story.

As a former public school Reading teacher, being able to predict and make inferences based on context clues is a huge deal!  Here MGT suggests to do just that with your preschooler with the 2nd bullet point below.  We went through tons of our books on the shelf, predicting what the characters might like to do based on this idea.

But adding to the at home library doesn't end there!

MGT also gives a great list of 20 suggested books that go with the theme.

I placed an orange star on the books that were listed above as a Story Time book.

This suggested book list is what I use to pick out our library books to check out for the month.

Before heading to the library, I spend about 30 mins- 1 hour looking through the library online catalog to see if my local library has these books.  

Most of the time they have some, but not all.  However I can find some great alternatives by looking up the keywords for that day's study topic.  

For instance, Day 18's topic is Sleep, but my library didn't have the book listed as a suggestion.  By using the catalog, I was able to look up "Sleeping" in our "Juvenile Easy Reader" section and found the book Shhhhh! Everybody's Sleeping, which we read last night, and we absolutely loved it!

Here's our library collection for the month.

Not to mention, MGT sends us a book to add to our home library collection each month! 

This month the book also came with a puzzle and magnets which just further emphasizes a love of reading through interacting with the story in new ways! 

Whew! Lots of ways to expand that home library and cultivate a love of reading in all children.

So thankful for Mother Goose Time making it easy for me, keeping me focused, and helping me find books perfect for my preschooler. 

Happy Reading!