• Make cookies together and have your children measure and put in the ingredients
• Create a height chart on an empty wall in your home and measure how your children grow
• Put different amounts of water in glass bottles and experiment with the different tones you can make with them

For more measuring fun ideas visit this website:

Check out this booklist for books about measuring, and other interesting ways of classifying things.

-Lauren Bangerter, BYU Student, Department of English

The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children 2010, Ages 4-8.

Highlights the many different types of quiet that everyone experiences from “the first one awake quiet” to “right before you yell ‘surprise!’ quiet.” This is an insightful and calming book that would be great right before bedtime.

Am I Big or Little? by Margaret Park Bridges, SeaStar Books 2000, Ages 4-8.

A loving mother explains to her daughter how she is both big and little at the same time. She is “little enough to bury ride piggyback to the stairs,” but “big enough to hope all the way down.” Each comparison is accompanied with bright water colored illustrations.

A Sock Is a Pocket for Your Toes: A Pocket Book by Elizabeth Garton Scanlon, Harpercollins Publishers 2004, Ages 4-8.

This book lists unconventional pockets that offer a creative look at everyday objects. For example, “A chimney is a pocket blowing smoke, and a pocket for a giggle is a joke.”

A Second is a Hiccup: A Child’s Book of Time by Hazel Hutchins, Arthur A. Levine Books 2004, Ages 4-8.

This book relates time measurement to actions children can relate to. A minute, for example is “sixty hiccups, sixty hops. Or if you sing just one small song, chorus, verses, not too long.” Describes how long seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years are.

See Also:

Feelings by Aliki

How to Hug by Maryann Macdonald

Up! by Kristine O’Connell George

How Much Is a Million? by David M. Schwartz

Millions to Measure by David M. Schwartz

If You Made a Million by David M. Schwartz

-Lauren Bangerter, BYU Student, Department of English.

Encourage your little one to find their favorite stuffed bear (or animal in general) and choose some friends to invite to do the same. Prepare a picnic together using teddy bears as your theme. Cut sandwiches with bear shaped cookie cutters, pack berries and maybe some homemade biscuits to eat with honey from a honey bear, and you can even buy teddy bear shaped graham cracker, gummies or crackers.

With your child and their invited friends, stuffed and human alike, layout a picnic blanket at a park or on your floor and enjoy your meal. Once you have eaten you can then enjoy story-time with your guests by asking each child to bring their favorite book about a bear or the type of stuffed animal they brought.

–Lauren McMullan, BYU Student, School of Education

24^th BYU Symposium on Books for Young Readers

A two–day symposium for librarians, teachers, parents, and anyone who enjoys children’s literature

Dates: July 14–15, 2011

Come join us for two enjoyable days with six nationally known authors and illustrators of children’s literature. Each author and illustrator will share their unique perspective on children’s literature followed by a short question–and–answer session. In addition, two autograph sessions and four informal discussion groups with individual authors will be available.

Featuring nationally acclaimed authors and illustrators:

• Robert Burleigh
• Mary Downing Hahn
• Susan Meddaugh
• Gennady Spirin
• Rebecca Stead
• David Wiesner

Sponsored by Brigham Young University’s Department of Teacher Education, Harold B. Lee Library, Division of Continuing Education, the BYU Bookstore, and the Provo City Library.

Space is limited, so register early!

Ebenezer and Obadiah are two brothers who lived a happy routine on their family’s farm. However, one day they had a misunderstanding and wouldn’t say sorry to one another. They move to different sides of the farm and eventually have families. It takes the rising generation to learn from Ebenezer’s and Obadiah’s mistakes and learn to say “I’m sorry.”

Sorry is an engaging story that offers a wonderful lesson that will teach children and adults of all ages. The story is accompanied by lively and colorful pictures by Brad Sneed. Although there is a sad tint to the story, it ends hopefully and would offer an excellent teaching moment to explain the importance of apologizing and forgiving.

–The Book of the Week this week was written by Lauren Bangerter, a BYU Student in the Department of English.

The problem is that most of the time parents do not have access to those tools to help supplemental child learning without going out of their way to order them from specialty stores. However, Utah State University has put together a National Library of Virtual Manipulatives where anyone can have access to virtual versions of the mathematical tools used in classrooms from Kindergarten through 12th grade.

The website is broken down by grades and mathematical categories (Geometry, Algebra, etc.). Each section contains a plethora of virtual tools that will help your child take their mathematical comprehension up a notch while at home. Each manipulative comes equipped with activity suggestions and tips for parents or teachers.

For more information about the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives visit their information page here

Deciding to leave the phone home? Try teaching kids leaf identification the old fashioned way and check-out a book on it from the local library. Though identification may seem like a simple thing it opens the doors to all kinds of questions; “What do leaves do? Why are they green? Why are they shaped like that?” All of which cultivate a child’s inquisitive mind and foster a sense of scientific questioning that will carry over into their school work and for-fun explorations.

-Lauren McMullan, BYU Student, School of Education

Let’s Do Nothing

It becomes a problem when you are two best friends who have done all there is to do. Really all that’s left is to do nothing at all. Except maybe one of you will end being kind of bad at it.

Fucile, who is a famous character animator, working on films such as The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, and The Lion King, has created a incredibly sweet and amusing story about two boys, their imaginations, and an attempt to do nothing. As one would expect the illustrations are delightful and this book could easily become a bedtime favorite.

–This week’s review was written by Lauren McMullan, a BYU student in the Department of Education, but with a special note for Lauren Bangeter, a BYU student in the Department of English, who was the one to discover it in the first place.

Cinderella: A Pop-Up Fairy Tale by Matthew Reinhart, Little Simon 2005, Ages 4-8

The Classic tale of Cinderella and her missing glass slipper and the prince who fell in love with her is retold as never before as the characters literally jump out of the pages.

Encyclopedia Prehistorica; Dinosaurs by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart, Candlewick Press 2005, Ages 5-10

An informative book that brings dinosaurs back to life, with little tabs that open up to reveal mini pop-ups inside.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar pop-up book by Eric Carle, Philomel 2009, Ages 4-8.

The loveable story of the caterpillar who ate and ate and ate has now been made into a pop-up book that will delight children of all ages.

Popville by Anouck Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud, Roaring Book Press 2010, Ages 4-8.

Watch a city grow as you turn the pages, from a single house to a city of skyscrapers.

-JilliAnne Jensen. BYU Student, School of Family Life