Books To Teach Basic Concepts

Books offer parents and teachers wonderful support for all kinds of learning! These books help to teach basic concepts like colors, numbers, shapes and more. Try to resist the urge to quiz your child while reading, that gives them the message that they could be ( and really shouldn’t be) wrong. These aren’t study materials and there is no final to study for anyway. Read and enjoy these books with your kids and the learning will happen.

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ABCs

Learn the Alphabet with NorthWest Coast Native Art by Ryan Cranmer (and others) was an amazing gas station find. Yes, I said gas station. I ran in for some diet coke and came out with an alphabet book! This book is amazing, bright beautiful and even though I bought it for my daughter since it’s bright colors and sturdy pages are perfect for a baby, my almost 4-year-old son adores it. What I love is when he reads it to her. The Native art is gorgeous and if you are unfamiliar with North West coast art you are in for a treat.

Alphabet Under Construction by Denise Fleming is a wonderful example of what an alphabet book should be. Perfect for toddlers and preschoolers learning their first letters, the text is short, the letters are front and center and the illustrations are fun and interesting. My son loves this book, I grabbed it at the library after remembering how much my Pre-K class loved it too.Many alphabet books are too long to read entirety at circle time or in one shot with a toddler. This is the exception to that rule. My son will sit through this book every time we read it. {This review is from when my son was 19 months old in 2008. His love of this book was really a jumping off point for his love of letters in general. I wish I could say I taught him his letters but really reading this one particular book over and over at his request probably did the trick. }

Chicka Chicka ABC by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault is a fantastic board book and shorter version of the longer book. My son loves this book and it’s the perfect amount of text for a toddler, the illustrations by Lois Ehlert are so bright and bold that even very young babies will respond to it! A must-have for all bookshelves.

Museum ABC by the Metropolitan Museum Of Art is a book that was first loved at our house because of the “C is for Cat” page, an early interest of my sons. I loved it because for each letter there are 4 usually very cropped pieces of paintings, showing only that part that fits the subject of each letter. In my nerdy love of identifying paintings, I play a game with myself trying to figure out which are which as my son is identifying the letter, and finding the subject matter in each. The book is so beautiful, it’s hard to do it justice in a simple review. A wonderful concept and a great intro to art books for even the tiniest patrons. ( edited for 2015 My 5-year-old daughter has latched on to this book, as she tries to figure out based on the letter what the painting are about. Some are obvious like the C for cat and A for apple but others are tricky, we love tricky. Great book for various levels. )

 

123s

Doggies by Sandra Boynton has been one of my daughter’s favorite books for ages. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s a simple counting book about dogs, their different barks, and one pesky cat. Toddlers love barking along with it so it’s a great book for places where they don’t have to be shushed, it’s not a great one for quiet only places like a church service.

Goodnight Moon 123 by Margaret Wise Brown uses the familiar illustrations from the classic book by Margaret Wise Brown and turns it into a counting book. The page with 100 stars really has 100 stars on it, count and see!

On the Launch Pad: A Counting Book About Rockets by Michael Dahl was a great find, my son loved counting down from 12-1 with the bright illustrations, simple text, and hidden numbers on each page. Something that seems simple but was really awesome was that each page had the number written as a word, shown as a digit and as dots to count. You can take the time to count each dot, read the word or simply recognize the digit!

Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh is another gem from this author illustrator. In this book, the mice outsmart a hungry snake and save themselves from his belly. In the meantime, the reader counts along as the mice are caught and put in a jar, then again when they escape. The simple illustrations are so effective and my son loved this book.

One, Two, Three by Tom Slaughter is super simple, bold, bright, and a great counting book!  This isn’t a complex book, but it is one that encourages counting with it’s brilliant illustrations.  I would happily recommend this book to families with babies through preschoolers, my 3-year-old loved it and partly because he read all the pictures and numbers himself!

 

Colors

Duckie’s Rainbow by Frances Barry is a clever little book, you walk with her as she passes things like a yellow cornfield and blue pond until the pages above create a rainbow. I love the idea but reading it with my son ( who was 2 at the time) all he wanted to do was turn the pages as quickly as he could to make the rainbow. Not a big deal but this would make a better storytime book then a bedtime one for that reason. ( Edited for 2015 I have read this to my class of 2 and 3-year-olds and they were in love. Great circle time book!)

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Elhert is a wonderful book to use for teaching about flowers and colors. The illustrations are bold and bright, perfect for little curious minds. I have always liked this book because you can sit down and dive into it reading each flowers name on every page, or browse it more casually with a younger child simply noting the colors.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. is a book that can go with a baby from infancy through toddlerhood and into the preschool years. The bold colors of the illustrations by Eric Carle are perfect for catching infant’s attention and will continue to grab it through the years. With the turn of each page the reader is left wondering what’s next, and if the reader is my son he will cut you off to tell you what’s coming next before you have a chance to turn the page. There are other titles in the series, including; Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See? , and Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? but this one is my very favorite! 

Shapes 

So Many Circles, So Many Squares by Tana Hoban is a picture book that is all about shapes in our environment. There is page after page of pictures of daily life, food, signs etc…with the simple question of finding the shapes in the photos. It’s a great book to use as a launch pad into a shape hunt in your own home or around town and worth a few looks because you will be surprised at the shapes you missed the first time. My Heart Is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall is a simple book that uses heart shapes to create a whole zoo full of animals. The illustrations are bold, the text is simple, and it is a great book to spark an activity where children look for shapes in everyday items. A lovely book for toddlers and up. 

Flip-a Shape: Go! by Sami will keep busy toddlers interested in all the shapes that are made with a school bus, boat, and more! The simplistic and bright illustrations coupled with the movements of the flip a shape, this book will be a hit with your toddler!

Dinosaur Shapes by Paul Stickland will delight you and your dinosaur fan. The book is geared towards toddlers and young preschoolers who are still mastering finding basic shapes.  A shape is displayed on one side of the page and then those silly dinosaurs are playing with it on the other. My son loves dinosaurs so even though he’s known these shapes for ages it’s an enjoyable book with fun text and adorable illustrations by Henrietta Stickland.

Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh is a cute book that not only helps teach shapes it is also entertaining! The three crafty mice use the shapes to protect themselves from one hungry cat finally using them to make scary mice to frighten the cat away! Kids love to help find which shapes are used in the illustrations and older ones can even anticipate what the mice will make next. 

 

Opposites 

Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! by Sandra Boynton is a cute little book about opposites with dinosaurs as its characters. This is a good book for little people who love dinosaurs but aren’t really ready to dive into facts about dinosaurs yet. The melodic rhyming text and adorable pictures appeal to younger toddlers, and the page where the dinosaurs are called bad for painting on their friends made both me and my son laugh.

Opposites by Sandra Boynton is a great board book. The author’s humor and adorable illustrations make it an everyday topic fun and fresh!

Dinosaur Roar! Board Book by Paul and  Henrietta Stickland and is a board book that I’ve read often enough, I don’t need to look at the book. The premise is simple, using 2 different dinosaurs every page illustrates a pair of opposites. Toddlers and young preschoolers adore this book and I can’t blame them, it’s adorable and a great tool for teaching!

 

Do you have a favorite book about the basics that we didn’t include? Share the title in the comments or on our Facebook Page. For more book lists check out our Book Lists For Kids board on Pinterest! 

If you teach preschool at a school or at home you will love my new book!