MommaReads

Mr. Tiffin’s class has three pumpkins-a small one, a medium one and a large one-and they are going to count how many seeds are in each pumpkin. First they get to makes estimates and then they get to count. There is a group counting by two’s, another group counting by five’s and another group counting by ten’s. As we were reading this book at our house we learned that the number of lines on a pumpkin can give you an indication as to how many seeds it has compared to another pumpkin…more lines=more seeds.

Herbert, the black cat, doesn’t have a home, so on cold days he likes to go to the nice warm library to read. One day he stumbles across a book called The Encyclopedia of Witches which tells him that witches wear striped stocking and pointed hats, they travel on brooms, they have cauldrons and they especially love black cats. Herbert goes on a quest to find a witch and stumbles across a few people who kind of match the description of a witch, but with no luck. After having so little luck and feeling very disappointed, he goes back to the library and finds a whole group of witch schoolgirls and their witch teacher.

This book has been read many times at our house. It’s a very cute story about a haunted house with ten ghosts and a witch that’s moving in and wants them out. The witch has all kinds of schemes to get the ghosts to leave and they work too, until one clever little ghost figures out her tricks and gets the others to reclaim “their” house. It has a cute ending, it rhymes and the story counts backwards from 10 to 1. It’s a perfect preschool book.

Arnold cannot wait for his class Halloween party to get started. He practices walking like a pirate and acting like a pirate all day…he wants to win the “scariest costume” prize. When it’s time for the children to change into their Halloween costumes though, he can’t find his anywhere! He is so sad about it that he hides under the white drop cloth the children use when they paint. In a cute and unexpected twist to the story, the drop cloth ends up being his costume and he does end up winning the “scariest costume” award. Your children will love to see who ends up wearing Arnold’s pirate costume at the end of the story, too. This book so captures the anticipation children have on the day of Halloween and the disappointment when things don’t go as planned.

A girl gets an invitation to a Halloween party and she is trying to use things she has around the house to make a costume. She comes up with a couple of different outfits, but neither one of them seems just right. Finally, thanks to her grandma, she ends up with a costume. I love this story because not only is it a rebus story (a rebus uses pictures to represent some of the words in a story) so it’s a great story for beginning readers, but it also a cumulative tale (which means parts of the story repeat throughout the story) which is also great for beginning readers and it rhymes.

The monster that lives under Ethan’s bed has gone fishing and Ethan’s just not sure if he will be able to go to sleep without his monster. A substitute monster shows up, but he doesn’t have long teeth or scratchy claws, which is what Ethan is looking for, so that monster leaves. The next monster has long claws, but there is nail polish on them which is not AT ALL what Ethan was hoping for. The next monster turns out to be a girl monster which isn’t going to work out-she has a bow on her tail-that’s not scary! Ethan gets a few more substitute monsters, but they are just not scary enough. Luckily, it turns out that Ethan’s monster doesn’t really like fishing that much and he returns much earlier than expected.

Oscar is a wiener dog and all of the other dogs are always making fun of him. So it doesn’t help that one Halloween his mom makes him a bun costume so he looks like a hot dog with mustard. All of the other dogs are vampires and mummies and witches and poor Oscar has to trick-or-treat in his hot dog costume that makes him walk so slowly that by the time he gets to each house, all of the candy is gone.
It turns out to be the best Halloween ever though when a horrible monster (turns out to be a bunch ornery cats in disguise) chases the other dogs into a lake and Oscar is there to not only expose the cats, but to also save his friends. It turns out that his hot dog costume also makes a wonderful life raft. 🙂 My youngest son has read just about every single Halloween picture book that exists and this is one of his favorites.

Harriet comes home from trick-or-treating with TONS of candy, but she refuses to share any of it with her little brother. Okay, maybe one piece, but only one that she wasn’t going to eat anyways. Harriet decides to hide her candy in a new place every time she eats some just to make sure nobody eats any of it but her. However, she starts to run out of hiding places, so she sits down and starts to eat it ALL. After a while (when she is starting to not feel so well) she decides that perhaps sharing IS a good idea after all. There’s a cute little twist at the end of the story too.

This is a very cute book for the preschool and under set. It has Halloween-type riddles that your little one can try and answer and then lift the flap to see if they are right.

Example: I have eight legs. It tickles when I scurry up your arm. But beware of my webs. You might get caught! What am I?

Child guesses and lifts the flap: A spider

Other answers to some of the other riddles are: an owl, a skeleton, a jack-o-lantern, a trick-or-treat bag and a witch.

Ben’s mom and dad have been dreaming up Halloween costumes for him and his brother since he was born. One year his brother was a magician and he was a rabbit. Another year his brother was the devil and he was an angel. Ben was a wedge of cheese one year and his brother was a mouse. The problem is that no one ever asked Ben what he wanted to be and the costumes his parents were coming up with were hot and hard to walk around in. So, this year, Ben has declared that he will be in charge of his own costume. His mom and dad have already started on his costume for this year, but give him their blessing to be whatever he wants. The simplicity and creativity of what Ben comes up with is perfect.