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| Cover images of books in the Our Favorite Shapes series: We Love Circles!, We Love Diamonds!, We Love Ovals!, We Love Rectangles!, We Love Squares!, and We Love Triangles! |
By Beatrice Harris
Gareth Stevens Publishing
2018
Ages 2-6
Lexile 20L
Concept books are an essential purchase for libraries. They help children understand their world by connecting abstract ideas to concrete, observable facts. From the excellent offerings of Abdo to the engaging, image-filled titles of Capstone, there is no shortage of informational books currently on the market. Given the plethora of concept books available, does a library really need another series? If that series is Our Favorite Shapes, I think the answer is yes.
This series arrived at my library this week, and I was immediately drawn to the bright, colorful covers. Each cover clearly states what shape the book is focused on (We Love Squares!) and shows four images of that shape. Inside, these straightforward concept books have simple spreads of one image and one line of text describing the image.
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| Interior image from We Love Squares! with a picture of a door and the text, "The door is a rectangle." |
The photographs encourage children to see shapes in everyday items, and the text provides a starting point for open-ended conversations.
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| Interior image from We Love Diamonds! with a picture of diamond-pane windows and the text,"I see diamonds in the glass." |
Each book ends with a final spread asking the reader to identify the featured shape from a picture of several shapes.
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| Interior image from We Love Circles! with a picture of four shapes and the text, "Point to the circle. We love circles!" |
Our Favorite Shapes is a perfect introduction to shapes for the preschool classroom, and the basic structure of the titles is well-suited to even the youngest classes. Teachers can extend the learning by going on a shape hunt or creating shape collages from pictures cut out of magazines. With their repetitive text and images as context clues, older preschoolers and early elementary students can also use these titles as beginning readers. Libraries looking to stretch their budgets will appreciate the multiple applications of these texts.
Source: Library copy
Readalikes:
Laura,
ReplyDeleteI was just about to mention the endless possibilities for programming when I got to your last paragraph! The Main branch in my library system does a lot of programming with little ones (outside of regular storytime programs, I mean), and has created a scavenger hunt before. Your discussion of this book immediately reminded me of that program, so I think the "shape hunt" could be applied to a library setting as well, as a kind of scavenger hunt. Of course, it would be easy to use this book in a storytime program as well, and pair it with a simple shape-themed craft.
Katrina, I completely agree with you about these books being great for public library programming. I've done a shape scavenger hunt before based on Hafuboti's dog tag scavenger hunt, and it went over very well. I used to do a monthly scavenger hunt in the children's area at my old library, but it fell to the wayside when I moved to a new location. Maybe it's time to start one again :)
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