We are on the right track with AR!

I think Josh is on track now with his AR levels and the right books to select for him! He finished The Haunted Mask and took his test. He made a 90% and he was quite proud of himself. We high-fived each other! :) He has moved on to the Summer of the Sea Serpent which is one of the Merlin Mission books in The Magic Tree House series. I love this series because the AR levels have increased through the series so your child can continue to enjoy these great books even as they are becoming more fluent readers and need something more difficult to challenge them.

Accelerated Reader Books

One of the biggest challenges for us as a parents this school year has been trying to help Josh find the right AR books to read. He reads on a 3.8 to 5.8 reading level. Even though he can read up to a 5.8 Duane and I feel that he is not ready to read that high of a level due to the length of the books and subject matter. We are encouraging him to try and pick books in the 3.8 range right now and work his way up to the higher level books. Currently he is reading Goosebumps and looking forward to reading some of the Merlin Missions from the Magic Tree House series. Josh and I frequetly look at My Child's Bookshelf website because I am able to pull up the books that are within the 3.5-3.9 book range and allow him to select the one he would like to read next.
-Angie

He is reading this book:

Back to School!

I am enjoying being back at school with my speech and language students. I feel like I have some really challenging activities for them to do. I love giving them activities to participate in that make them think and problem solve. Today we read a short paragraph describing a football. They got all of the attention to detail questions right but only one of them could tell me that it was a football. It seems like an easy thing, but sometimes what you think should be obvious isn't. When I am reading with one of the boys I always ask them questions about the story or about a word that I am not sure they know. Reading to your child should be enjoyable, but I love when I feel like it was a teachable moment!

The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark

   Joshua and I always read a book together ever since he was a baby. Even though he can read now, it is something that we have always enjoyed doing together. We just finished reading The Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark. It was a great book that we both really enjoyed reading. When we were done Josh asked whether there was another one.
   It is a very interesting concept that Ridley Pearson chose to write about. There are four kids who have had holographic characters based on them in The Magic Kingdom who guide guests with information about the park and events taking place that day. The main character is a boy named Finn. When he and the other kids go to sleep at night their subconscious crosses over into the park. They are given a mission by a man named Wayne who is one of the Disney Imagineers. The kids come up against classic villians like the pirates from the Pirates of the Carribean ride and Maleficent, the witch from Sleeping Beauty.
   This book is very well written and I enjoyed reading it as an adult as well. If you and your kids are Disney fans this is a cool book with places and characters you will remember from your trip to The Magic Kingdom.
-Angie Malek

Chrysanthemum

I have been sitting here putting the book information into our inventory when this book caught my eye. I have heard of Chrysanthemum but since I have two boys, I have never read it. As I was putting in the information about the book into our system I decided to read it. It is a really cute book about a mouse who loves her name which is Chrysanthemum. When she goes to school the kids start making fun of her name so she goes home every day hating her name. The kids meet their music teacher whose name happens to be Delphinium and she talks about how much she loves the name Chrysanthemum. That day Chrysanthemum goes home loving her name. I fell in love with the message behind this book. Kids will be or are already back in school and this is the perfect book to read with them whether you are a teacher or a parent. I know I used the word "name" a lot in this post but that is the whole point of the book. It is definitely one to check out.
-Angie Malek

AR Books for Back to School

     With school starting up soon it's time to start thinking about AR (Accelerated Reader)* books. We have a variety of AR books for your little boy or girl of any age. When we first discussed opening a bookstore, the whole premise was to be a convenient place for parents and teachers to shop for AR books. That's why we list the ATOS* book level and AR point value on every qualified book we have. To our knowledge, we are the only bookstore you will find that provides this information.
     We soon learned that people were interested in more than just AR and so our inventory has changed and grown to include more homeschool, resource and board books. But AR is still the seed that started My Child's Bookshelf. We invite you to browse our selection and use the information we provide as you decide what books to buy for your child for the upcoming school year.
-Duane Malek
*AR, ATOS & Accelerated Reader are registered trademarks of Renaissance Learning, Inc.  

Book Review: Disney Cars Read-Along Storybook and CD

     Our 3 year old, Garrett, LOVES his Cars Read-Along Storybook and CD. He will get it off of his bookshelf and bring it into the living room so he can "read" to us. We pop the cd into our dvd player and it's Cars in surround sound! He makes sure everyone is quiet and following along as he turns the pages when he hears the "chime" signal. It's adorable to watch him as he concentrates to turn the page at just the right time.
     When we gave it to him I wasn't sure he would be able to follow along and turn the pages, but after I showed him a couple of pages he picked up on the chime, took the book and ran the show! We are thrilled with this and other Read-Along books we carry! Right  now we have 5 different titles in stock, but quantities are limited. If you have a 3 or 4 year old I think they will enjoy having a book that they can "read" all by themselves. I know our little one does. :)
-Duane Malek

Interact with us!

Angie and I have started this blog as a way for us to interact with customers, parents, teachers, bloggers and anyone else that loves children's books. We will review books from our store that our kids have read or that we have read to them. We will try to give some ideas of how you can use children's books as a resource for teaching (such as Angie's post yesterday). Share with us books that your kids love! Tell us what you think about our bookstore, good or bad, we want to know what's on your mind. Bloggers, feel free to post links to your own blog or anything else that you think is relevant to children's books. As always, thank you for your interest in My Child's Bookshelf!
-Duane Malek

Almost time to go back to school!

I am preparing for my first day back at work on August 1st. My room is decorated and organized. I am working on a couple of books to read to my students that have vocabulary in them that I can teach them through literature. For my younger elementary school students we will be reading Arthur's Chicken Pox by Marc Brown. My older elementary school students and I will be reading Beware the Werepup by Julie Sykes. My oldest son read it and said it was a great book. I don't think that it has hit Josh that he will be starting third grade next week. Won't he be surprised! If you are a teacher, what is your favorite book to read to your students at the beginning of a new school year? If you are a parent, what book(s) are you reading to your children right now?