Story Stretchers for Infants, Toddlers, and Twos

I really appreciate Gryphon House books. They offer quality teaching material to use, not just in classrooms, but in the home. Now, I know some people look at teaching tools and consider them meant just for classroom situations. I really don't. Anything that can be used in the classroom can be used by me as a parent to my child. Nothing prevents me from utlizing good resources to further my own child's education and understanding of the world around him. In my opinion, it's my responsibility to prepare him for life -- and learning. Therefore I'm quite willing to take a good look at what Gryphon House has to offer.

Story S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-r-s kinda follows along the lines of Starting With Stories (click on the link to see my review) except for this book does not highlight lesson plan/activity ideas for multiple learning styles. This is a basic activity book for infants and toddlers that takes popular story books and builds on them. This is a book that you can start with at birth for good ideas on how to interact with your child as you introduce them to books and stories.

For example, one of the books that it highlights is Show Me! (which we have). This is a simple board book in which babies are introduced to their various basic body parts via a cutesy little game of pointing and tickling. This is a great book for interactions and I enjoyed reading it with my son when he was younger. Story Stretchers takes a step beyond this book and gives you ideas for a clapping game and encourages you to involve dolls and stuffed animals in learning where things are (like eyes, ears, belly buttons, etc.). It takes the story and it stretches it out. (Handily titled book, eh?)

For toddlers on up, I would probably go with Starting with Stories. However, if you are excited to introcude your child to reading and the love of it from a younger age, I'd go with Story Stretches for an earlier beginning.