
This month you can use Ranger Rick Jr. magazine to introduce your child to poetry. You’ll also find out how animals keep themselves clean.
Turn to pages 6–11 and show your child the small wild cats. Tell your child that the word “rat” rhymes with “cat.” Then ask him to name other words that rhyme with cat (fat, sat, flat, hat, bat). Have your child point to a wild cat and read the accompanying poem. As you read aloud, emphasize the rhythm of the language and the rhyming words. Have your child point to the words that rhyme in the poem. Then read the other cat poems aloud.
Ask your child what things she does to get clean. (
Wash her hands; soak in a tub; take a shower, shampoo her hair.) Turning to pages 16–21, learn how animals bathe. The animals on pages 16-17 all bathe much the way people do. Animals shown on pages 18–21 rely on dirt to protect their skin or help them get clean. Ask your child to name things humans do that are like what these animals are doing. (Apply sunscreen to their skin or comb their hair with a brush). Then ask your child to name one thing she uses to get clean that none of the animals use. (Soap!)
Turn to pages 26–27 and show your child the Thumbprint Zoo illustration. Have fun using a stamp pad and a pen to turn your child’s thumbprints into animals in the zoo.
Enjoy reading with your child!
Mike Wilson, Founder
Prekindergarten Reading Encouragement Project
PREP – Helping childhood literacy one family at a time.
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