Summary: Queen Vernita invites twelve wonderful friends to visit with her during each month of the year. Queen Vernita and her friends enjoy fun activities throughout the Oceaneers Kingdom. Parents and teachers will love teaching the monthly calendar days of the weeks and season through the storytelling adventures of Queen Vernita and her friends. -- Outskirts PressWhen I read this description of QUEEN VERNITA'S VISITORS by Dawn Menge and illustrated by Bobbi Switzer, I thought it might be the perfect book to teach the days of the week and the months of the year to my four year old son. He loves to "blog about books," and he was very anxious to get started on this one. We sat down last night and read this book, but I have to admit that we didn't have great results. He was very interested in it for awhile; but by the time we got to the page about the month of September, he started to get fidgety. By November, he was just plain done.
I really do like the concept of this book -- a queen is lonely so she invites a different visitor each month of the year. Each page spread covers a different month and then describes the queen and her friend's activities for every day of the week. The author also manages to incorporate the various seasons and things associated with the seasonal holidays into the story. Where the book fell short for me was the constant repetition. I understand that repetition is key to teaching kids new concepts, but I read 84 different days and their activities. Not only did is get kind of boring to keep reading the days of the week for each month, but the book took a long time to read -- a little too long for my four year old.
Check out this cute video below which tells you a little more about the book and shows some of the illustrations:
While this book wasn't one of my son's favorites, I think many kids will really enjoy it and learn from it. In addition, I think teachers might find QUEEN VERNITA'S VISITORS a valuable learning aide to teach their students about the months of the year, the days of the week, and the various seasons and holidays.
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2 comments:
It's hard for little kids when they have no concept of time. My daughter is always asking, "Today Mommy? Or Tomorrow? Later? Does that mean today?" I finally have her ticking days off the calendar so she knows what constitutes a day.
My kids are into the days of the week lately. My son walks around singing his days of the week song all the time.
Maybe I'll try this one if I can find it at the library.
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