Visual Feasts for the Kitchen Table, or Easel Worthy Titles
Our family was gifted a perfect bookworm friendly gift this year for Christmas– a wooden book easel. I think it may become our most used gift of the year, and I’ve quickly begun to wonder why we didn’t have one sooner! So simple and yet it’s infused our home with another layer of literacy. We have used it primarily on our kitchen table, enjoying what I like to call visual feasts.
With mouths full, we enjoy art, visual puzzles, seek-and-find books, and simply savor with our eyes while nourishing our bodies. (You might say nourishing our minds as we nourish our bodies!) The hands free aspect has been fantastic, and the specialness of the easel lets the kids know we ought to focus attention on its contents. The one we have is bamboo, adjusts to four angles, and the most useful feature– has arms to hold pages open. (And it also holds our tablets.) I’m sure there are lots of options out there!
In case you’d like to give this easy literacy tip a try, below are our early favorites for easel viewing. Or, if you’re searching for a gift for a bookworm, consider pairing an easel with one of these titles!
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Visual Puzzle Books
These are fun for Mommy & Daddy Bookworm, too. We all enjoy puzzling together, and we are using lots of language to describe our conclusions. Win-win! #literacyrich
Undercover: One of These Things is Almost Like the Others by Bastien Contraire
Where’s the Pair by Britta Teckentrup
Seek and Find Books
This category is Toddler Bookworm’s favorite! He scours the pages for his favorite things and asks for his favorite pages to be displayed.
Backyard Detective: Critters Up Close by Nic Bishop.
Giant Fun to Find Puzzles: Busy Places. This is an oversized book, and the easel handles it well.
The Find It Book by Margaret Wise Brown. I love that this marries the seek & find genre with nursery rhymes. The clues and illustrations refer to nursery rhyme characters– find the wolf in sheep’s clothing; find the cow jumping over the moon, etc. We are simultaneously reading The Very Best of Mother Goose illustrated by Rosemary Wells.
Art Books
This is an area I want to grow in– I have a few on interlibrary loan that I’m waiting for (listed in the Next Up section below).
Can Hear It? from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is a book and CD which pairs famous works of art with classical music.
Next Up I’m planning to pull these out in the weeks to come:
Award Winning Wordless Books:
Journey by Aaron Becker (and series)
Flotsam by David Weisner.
The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
Art Books:
13 Artists Children Should Know by Angela Wenzel
13 Paintings Children Should Know by Angela Wenzel
What books would you add to our list? Have you shared “featured” books on an easel or in another way? Connect with me in the comments or on my Facebook page or Instagram account!
