When my kids were little, we didn’t have electronics, etc. (except for our beloved GeoSafari and MathSafari!), so gift giving was a little simpler. We did, however, give a balance of educational items and fun items (just like I am doing with my grandbabies!). Our kids loved school and learning, so they looked forward to getting “school” things for Christmas besides the many wonderful toys we got them–for the most part. We had a couple who didn’t love school as much as the others (though we still had high expectations for them!), so I understand the need to make learning more fun for some kiddos! Enter my two readers/coloring books. I am excited about these print books (available from Amazon) as they have the fun of exciting, well-known stories and coloring pages AND text that can be used for reading aloud to the child or as a reader for them.

Above are some links to books I use and love. I am an affiliate for Amazon.com. If you click on the links I will earn a small commission. Thank you for your support of this blog!

I published two of these in the last year—Read and Color, Mowgli and Read and Color, Beauty & Beast. They both have these great benefits:

+The engaging text is perfect for emerging readers to practice their word calling skills. However, the text is detailed enough to actually discuss and learn from—thus, building comprehension skills.

+Each one provides the perfect opportunity for parents and grandparents to read aloud to their favorite children—before or after the coloring pages are colored with crayons, markers, or colored pencils.

+Both are available in print and download form.

And….here are the descriptions of each book! You won’t be disappointed in these engaging coloring books!

Color and Read, Beauty & Beast

This lovely coloring book and reader is 45 pages long. The engaging text is perfect for emerging readers to practice their word calling skills. However, the text is detailed enough to actually discuss and learn from—thus, building comprehension skills. Section I contains the a short story of the original Beauty and the Beast story at a second to third grade reading level. Section II introduces children to the characters, giving funny and cute information about each one in a short paragraph that is perfect for reading aloud and for discussion.

Finally, Section III teaches new readers about the types of castles that were popular during the Middle Ages. These short passages are perfect for reading and for writing from. The pictures are delightful! Students will love coloring the scenes from the original story. They will have fun with the individual character pictures in Section II.

Lastly, kids will be challenged with the detailed castle pictures in Section III. Delightful pictures to color coupled with appropriate, yet challenging text, will engage your young student for many hours. The pictures are also appropriate for the pre-reader.

This book provides the perfect opportunity for parents and grandparents to read aloud to their favorite children—before or after the coloring pages are colored with crayons, markers, or colored pencils.

This book is available for purchase in print and download form.

Click here to preview the coloring book!

Color and Read, Mowgli

The Color and Read, Mowgli! book is a 66 page reader, coloring book, and story book all in one! It is a product in our Book-Movie-Book line-up, which contains books and materials based on an old book that is a modern-day movie. This series is a fun way to get children interested in old books—watch the movie; read the original (or a version of it) book; and read, write, or color in/about the movie/book with one of our BMB products!

Color and Read, Mowgli! is much more than a coloring book! The whimsical, detailed pictures will definitely delight young artists. However, another benefit is the two texts that are provided—a larger, bold-font text for a young reader to read to himself or aloud to someone for reading practice and a smaller-font, more detailed text for adults to read to the child.

Section I contains “Meet the Characters,” pictures, beginning reader text, and advanced reader text about the characters in The Jungle Book. Section II contains “The Story.” Full page pictures and the two text levels fill this delightful section.

This book is available in print and download form.

Click here to preview the coloring book!

P.S. What do your kids like to color with? What are your favorite educational coloring books right now? My kids used to love the Dover ones!

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Find Out Your Kids’ Faves!

In my recent podcast, Ten Tips for Staying Close During Intense Training Times With Tweens and Teens, I talk about blessing and surprising your kids with little treats to bring in some fun—and make your child feel special. One way that you can keep track of each child’s favorite is to use some type of Kids’ Faves inventory/worksheet.

It just so happens that we have one for you—for free— to our newsletter subscribers. So if this sounds like something you need or want to use with your kids,scroll down to the end of this post, subscribe, download, print, and use!  (If you’re already a subscriber, go ahead and enter your email…you won’t get the newsletter twice, but you’ll still get the newsletter!)

If you don’t want to use our list, you can, of course, create your own.

Here are some tips for using such a list (from the front matter of our Kids’ Faves Worksheets):

This little tool is useful for many reasons:

(1)    It will help you with your Christmas shopping throughout the year (just pull completed sheets out if you see something on sale).
(2)    It will help you if you constantly forget (which one likes Rocky Road Ice Cream?).
(3)    It will help you plan little surprises along the way (which helps your child feel like you are thinking of him or her-because you are!).
(4)    It will help you get to know your child better.

Here are some tips for using it/implementing it: 

(1)    Have a family night in which everybody fills in all or part of it. (Since it is long, you could have them do the even questions one family night and the odd questions another family night.)

a.    Plan some things/foods, etc., that you THINK are kids’ faves … and after they turn in their sheets, tell them what you made and whose favorite you thought it was. (This is eye opening!)

b. Pass around the papers and have everybody fill them in (or half of them). We liked to do this type of thing while we listened to audio/radio dramas or fun music. Try to keep the kids from discussing as they are writing.

c. Have Mom or Dad collect them and read some answers here and there (depending on time available) and have people guess who wrote that. (This is eye opening too!)

d. Have the snacks you bought or prepared and vote on a family movie or play a family game.

(2)    Meet one on one with each child and fill it in with him or her. This helps the ones who can’t think of anything at the time since you are there to prompt them. This is especially good for younger kids or weak writers.
(3)    Make copies! Things get lost easily, and you want your kids to feel like this is important to you.
(4)    Be sure you tell them that you want to have this list to surprise them or for gift buying, etc., but tone it down a little if your kids are extremely thing-driven or have high expectations that you are ALWAYS bringing them home a Starbucks, etc. (Honestly, this works better with kids who are not over-indulged already.)
(5)    You can always get the lists out and use for dinner time discussions too. For example, “Let’s see if we can guess what Johnny’s favorite movie is,” etc. Or “I’m going to read the favorite candies lines, and we will guess whose page we think that is.” This is also a good way to help the kids focus on siblings and not just themselves.
(6)    Type this, print it, and keep each one in your purse or billfold (or scan it/take a picture of it, and store it on your phone). You want to have it at your fingertips.

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