iPad Mini Giveaway on Mom's Library!!

Welcome back to another week of Mom's Library. Each week I cohost the Mom's Library along with True Aim. This linky party is filled with parenting tips, activities for kids, stories, crafts, recipes, and more! Plus, each week we host a weekly giveaway. This week's giveaway is a BIG one, read down to find out how to enter to win an iPad mini!! Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next Library! Follow the Mom's Library Pinterest Board to see all of our featured posts. Check out last week's Mom's Library for writing activities for kids in the summer.

Featured Posts

 This week's featured posts are 10 fun things to do in the summer to beat boredom.

1. Create a DIY Water Wall from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
2. Get Crafty-- try a DIY Robot mask from Meaningful Mama
3. Make a playful craft. How to Run a Home Daycare shares how to make your own super flyers that you can take outdoors and watch them fly.
4.  Explore caves. If you don't have any caves, try Enchanted Homeschooling Mom's idea for pretend caves. Check it out on Life With Moore Babies' blog.
5.  While you are underground, check out JDaniel4's Mom's idea for exploring underground animals with homemade tunnels.
6.  Continue your outdoor learning, by studying the science of fireflies. (or as we call them around here, "lightening bugs").
7.  Try these traveling with kids ideas for beating boredom when you are on the go from Fun-a-Day.
8.  Entertain your kids in the kitchen. Make this Ants on a Mossy Log for a twist on a classic snack from Crystal's Tiny Treasures.
9.  Read a good book. School Time Snippets has a list of books for boys that I'm excited to check out for my boys. Or you can check out books by theme right here at ready-set-read.com.
10. Join a summer reading program and let your summer reading efforts be rewarded. Play Eat Grow has the low down on summer reading programs your kids can join.

Giveaway

Today's giveaway may sound "mini" but it is actually a super big, super cool prize! Blue Manor Academy is offering to giveaway one iPad Mini.  The Grand Prize winner gets an iPad mini and the full PreK and K ebook sets from Blue Manor Christian Preschool Curriculum. That's a $410 value!! There will be 4 runners-up who will win the complete PreK and K ebook sets. (If you have already purchased an ebook set and win the giveaway, they'll even refund your money). I've just started using this preschool curriculum with my boys and I am loving it! Check out the full review on True Aim's blog along with the  iPad Mini Giveaway! You can enter to win right here at ready-set-read.com


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mom's Library Linky Party

Would you like to participate? Here's How:
 1. Please follow me and True Aim!
2.  Enter the URL of your post below.
3.  Support your fellow bloggers and visit 2 other links.
 If you were featured please grab a button.

 *By linking up, you are granting me permission to use and/or re-post photographs from your blog or website.

>

Writing with Children in the Summer and Mom's Library

Welcome Back to Mom's Library! Each week I co host this link up along with True Aim. It's filled with parenting tips, activities for kids, stories, crafts, recipes, and more! We also now have weekly giveaways!!  Be sure to subscribe (to you) so you don't miss the next Library! Follow the Mom's Library Pinterest Board to see all of our featured posts.

Last week on Mom's Library I featured Summer Reading Charts-- ways to motivate your child to read this summer. Since reading and writing go hand in hand, I am featuring writing with children this week. I'm featuring some awesome ideas from readers, along with tips for writing with children in the summer.

Writing with Children

#1- Make Writing Authentic
What could be more motivating that writing letters to a real person and building a friendship with writing? This Fine Day shares how they began their pen pal program.

#2- Connect Writing to Everyday life
In school, children are asked to write narratives about life's experiences. They are asked to express their opinion. They are also expected to write informational text. Using their own experiences is a great way to cover all of these types of writing.  If you look through your own journal, you'll definitely find narratives and opinions! You might even find little notes you've written down with facts you want to remember. A journal personalizes the writing and makes it more motivational for kids.
Raise a Boy shares their Summer Journals.

#3- Get tech savvy with your summer writing activities
Children who are reluctant to write with paper and pencil in the summer, may love having the opportunity to write using a computer or tablet.
iGame mom reviews an app for Book Creator which allows kids to add pictures and sound to their writing!

Giveaway
This week's giveaway is any two prints from the All our Days Print Shop! Filled with artistic reminders of God's love and the power and importance of family, andy digital print from this shop you will be proud to display in your home. And 50% of all profits go to a fellow Mom Blogger's Adoption Fund. You can read all the details on the review of All our Days Print Shop Here's a sample of the type of print you could choose if you win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mom's Library Link Up
Would you like to participate?

1. Please follow me and True Aim!
2. Enter the URL of your post below.
3. Support your fellow bloggers and visit 2 other links. 

If you were featured please grab a button.

I'd love if you'd follow ready-set-read.com to see if you are featured next week!
 *By linking up, you are granting me permission to use and/or re-post photographs from your blog or website.

Transportation Preschool Theme Book List

Studying vehicles and transportation is an engaging topic for most preschool children. Preschool teachers often weave the transportation theme into the school year. Having great books about transportation can really help children as they dive into a vehicle study. As a mom of two preschoolers, we play with trucks, cars, buses, and boats nearly every day. We have many favorite books about "things that go".

If you have a child who loves everything that goes, Everything Goes On Land by Brian Biggs and
Everything Goes in the Air by Brian Biggs are a wonderful transportation books to add to your collection. (The links in this post are Amazon affiliate links. Clicking on the picture of the book title will take you to the book on Amazon for your convenience).
In  Everything Goes: On Land by Brian Biggs, children will travel with Henry and his dad through the busy city. On each page, there are labels, street signs, and dialogue to be read. Occasionally the books cuts away from the busy seek and find type pages to reveal a large image of a vehicle. These pages show the technical parts of the vehicles. Kids will love the visual imagery of this book. Adults will enjoy the humor in the dialogue.
Everything Goes: In the Air  follows the same pattern of writing as the first book. This book would be great for reading before taking a trip to an airport. Not only does it cover all types of flying machines and how they work, it also covers the ins and outs of an airport. The boy has many questions about going through security and loading up baggage, and the author answers those questions with a balance of humor and information.

Freight Train  by Donald Crews is the perfect introduction to color words for any train lover. This story uses 6 basic colors  to build a train. As the train moves down the tracks, over a tressle, through tunnels, and past buildings, the colors blur to form a rainbow train. This book introduces train vocabulary as well as color words. It is a Caledcott Honor book.
Explore other modes of transportation with the author, Donald Crews, by checking out some of his other transportation books:

Truck School Bus Flying Harbor Sail Away


Tip Tip Dig Dig  by Emma Garcia is a great transportation book for young preschoolers. Each page pictures a large construction vehicle. The repetitive, rhythmic text explains the job of each vehicle. In the story, the vehicles exhibit teamwork as each machine's job contributes to a new playground for children at the end of the story.
Garcia has several other books that fit well with a transportation theme.



This Car  by Paul Collicutt is the transportation book your child is most likely to "read" independently. The book follows a repetitive text of "This car is..." Each page explores opposites.  The information is basic. It covers terms like short and long. The end pages give additional information as they label each car with make, model, and year.  It seems that once an author jumps into the transportation theme of writing, they just can't stop. Collicutt also has several other books on the transportation theme.

Mike Mulligan and More: Four Classic Stories by Virginia Lee Burton Virginia Lee Burton wrote some of the most award winning and noteable classic children's books on transportation. Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel is a classic transportation theme book. This narrative text also provides information as to how transportation changed over time. Katy and the Big Snow, and Maybelle the Cable Car are other transportation themed books included in this Virginia Lee Burton anthology.

Trucks Board Book Trucks by Byron Barton is a very simple text and simply illustrated first guide to types of trucks. The large picture on most pages makes this a great choice for young preschool children. The bonus is that early readers in your house will possibly be able to read aloud to younger children! This was one of my boys favorite books when they were toddlers. Again, Barton has an entire series of transportation books.

Planes Board Book Trains Board Book Boats Board Book Machines at Work Board Book My Car Board Book Big Machines Board Book (Festival!)

A Truck Goes Rattley-Bumpa A Truck Goes Rattley- Bumpa by Jonathan London is a great introductory book for a transportation or vehicle unit in preschool. Simple texts and clear illustrations define trucks, give uses for trucks, and engages children in the reading.

Ship Ahoy! Ship Ahoy by Peter Sis If you read my Dinosaur theme list, you may remember wordless picture book author, Peter Sis. Sis once again engages the child's imagination as he tells the story of a young boy who imagines a ship all while staying on his own couch. Children will learn they don't have travel far to experience all types of vehicles and transportation.
Other books by sis
Fire Truck Trucks Trucks Trucks Board Book

Things that Go Series by Patricia Hubbell
This series is rhyming yet informational. There is a lot of labeling  and strong use of vocabulary but with just a few lines of text per page, it makes it accessible to preschoolers

Other books in the series include Trucks: Whizz! Zoom! Rumble Airplanes Trains: Steaming! Pulling! Huffing! Cars: Rushing! Honking! Zooming!

  Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (Big Book Edition) (Pigeon Series) Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems--- you probably know how this one goes, the bus driver leaves after asking the reader to make sure the pigeon doesn't drive the bus and the pigeon shows up the the scene begging to well, drive the bus! There are many informational texts for a transportation theme, several great narratives about vehicles, but Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus is a perfect persuasive (argumentative) text to round out your transportation unit!


Dig Dig Digging by Margaret Mayo Another great book on the transportation theme! I loved reading this book about vehicles to my boys when they were young preschoolers. The busy trucks and diggers work hard all day and then settle down to sleep at night. You can read a full review of Dig Dig Digging at Story Snug. Thanks to +Catherine Friess  for recommending this one on G+!

Whether by car or by truck on land or by sea, let your kids books take them somewhere this summer. Vehicles can be a fun theme for summer learning as well. Read books about vehicles and see how many you can spot on your travels this summer!

Do you have a favorite transportation preschool theme book?
Check out my Preschool Themes Book lists. There are books on topics such as me and my family, back to school, colors, shapes, animals, dinosaurs, and more!
Also, find activities to accompany your preschool themes on my Preschool Themes Pinterest Board. I'd love if you'd follow while you are there.