Shapes - Baby and Toddler Story Time

For this week's baby and toddler story time, I decided to have a story time on the concept of shapes. The first book that I read was Go, Shapes, Go! by Denise Fleming. In this story, the shapes are introduced one shape at a time. The mouse puts the individual shapes together to form a monkey. I asked my story time audience what the shapes formed and one toddler proudly announced "a monkey!" But the mouse crashes into the monkey and all of the shapes come tumbling down. The mouse is horrified when the shapes reform into the shape of a cat! The story ends with the mouse saying, "I like monkeys. Yes, I do. I'll make a new monkey ....... for me and you." The last illustration is a monkey doing a hand stand by the mouse.

I had high hopes for Sweet Shapes: A Forest of Tasty Shapes by Juana Medina, but the book fell flat. In hindsight, I think that this might be a better book for a preschool story time than a baby and toddler story time. Not all of the desserts are easily identifiable. That said, it's a fun book! Some, but not all of the desserts include the following: a macaron owl, chocolate-dipped pretzel mice, strawberry foxes, baklava squirrels, jelly bean butterflies, and a brownie bear. This book made me so hungry! There's a recipe for chocolate-covered strawberries at the end of the book.

Here are some other books that I had but didn't read.

In Mouse Shapes by Ellen Walsh, several mice make a variety of interesting items from one oval, two circles, and eight triangles. At the end of the story they use the shapes to make three big scary mice to scare the cat away! 

In Shape Capers by Cathryn Falwell, children use circles, squares, triangles, semicircles, and rectangles to make a wide variety of colorful shapes. In the story, they use the shapes to make a scooter, car, rocket, dragon, and boat. 

In Friendshape by Amy Krouse Rosentha and Tom Lictenheld, a circle, square, triangle, and rectangle use their shapes to illustrate the joys and challenges of friendships. 

In Round Is A Mooncake: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Thong, a young girl finds circles, squares, and rectangles in her home and in her neighborhood. The rice bowls, eyes of a mouse, and cups of jasmine tea are round. The checkerboard, tofu and radish cakes, pizza box and dim sum are square. Inking stones, paintbrush racks, and mobile phones are rectangles.