So much of Little Miss C’s learning stems from books and when I see her curled up in bed or in her “reading corner” with a book it just gives me a bit of a warm glow inside to see her starting that reading journey that I loved as a child. It’s not just words and language that children learn from books though and one thing that I really like about Spot a Lot Animal Escape is how it encourages children’s maths and observation skills too.
The opening lines of “There’s trouble at the zoo today… The animals have run away!” instantly grabs children’s attention and they instantly want to know what has happened, where they’ve gone and how they’re going to be found. On each page children are asked to find an increasing number of animals (one giraffe, two elephants, three gazelles etc) and all this is accompanied by humorous rhyming text and very busy pictures with lots of things to spot in them. There are also loads of little written prompts in the illustrations with more things to look for.
One thing that I also loved about this book is that fact that it works perfectly when you’re looking for a book to share with siblings. The story part isn’t so long that Master C gets bored with it, but at the same time there is so much for him to look at in the pictures that he is amused whilst I do the story with Little Miss C. There is loads that I can ask both children to spot in the pictures, and I can get LMC to count various things to help with her maths learning as we read it.
Doing the bedtime routine single handed with two children can be tricky, so it’s nice to be able to double up at story time and books like this seem quite a rare find – or I’m just looking in the wrong places!
Disclaimer: We were sent Spot A Lot Animal Escape to review by Parragon as part of our role as Book Buddies. This post contains affiliate links.
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