Once again, this week I’ve got my friend and Kindie Music Rockstar, Joanie Leeds, joining me in a fun song on the Miss Nina Weekly video: “There’s A Hole In The Bucket”.

I distinctly remember watching and listening to this song on Sesame Street for the first time when I was a little girl – and this song dates to way back before even then!

It was my first introduction to a “Circular Story” – a story that goes around and starts back where it started! These are great fun – and often hilarious to toddlers, preschoolers and kindergarteners! They are also a great way to start talking about the elements of story: beginning, middle and end. In fact, if your child enjoys todays video and song, there’s a few good kids books you might want to break out and read with your little ones that compliment it. Below the video I’ve listed a few:

Ready for some companion reading?! Here’s a few great circular story children’s books:

Yep! “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” by Laura Numeroff is one of the best known circular story children’s books out there. It’s a fun story and the pictures are really engaging – the extra details like the mouse sleeping in a powder puff box, or how he has one long hair, but a million little hairs end up on the floor when he gives himself a trim are pretty hilarious. And there’s now the whole “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” series with “If You Give a Moose a Muffin,” “If You Give a Pig and Pancake”, and quite a few more! Definitely check these out if you haven’t before.

One of my all time favorite children’s books, “The Mitten” by Jan Brett is another super fun circular story about a boy, Nikki, and what happens to his mitten when he drops it in the snow. I recently read this story aloud on the Miss Nina Weekly Video Show for our Online Playschool Demo Week (you can watch that video HERE). Along with being a a great story to read when “studying” circular stories, it’s great Witner themed story, great for the concepts of In & Out, and some fun animal identification and learning about the different sizes of animals.  My daughter loves to act this out with a blanket and all her stuffed animals.

Last but not least a relatively new children’s book on our bookshelf, is “Boo!” by Ben Newman. This version of a circular story is perfect for toddlers and young children. “No one is as brave as me and nothing, I mean nothing scares me… you’ll see!” Follow a cast of courageous animal characters as they each take turns to see who is the bravest animal of all. This book is super bright, colorful and engaging – and really cute! A great intro to a circular story for little ones.  And a nice book for beginning readers, too!

Have a fun week with watching this video and reading these great books! And if you have a book or song that would be great to add to the list, please leave a comment below! We can never have too many books and songs to ready and sing!

Enjoy and see you next Tuesday!

xoxo

Miss Nina