The Cat in the Hat's Great Big Flap

This book is probably the best value and choice for children under 3 among the Dr. Seuss offerings. This book draws on five of the best Dr. Seuss books for young learners in abridged and more interactive fashion to make it exciting and interesting to very young children. You get basic counting, letter identification, prereading training, introduction to rhyming, and the alphabet all in one fun book with great flaps that the smallest fingers will lovingly turn open. Any child can get a great educational start on important basics here, and graduate to working with the complete five books to provide this information in more depth. The first two page spread is from The Cat in the Hat and covers all the numbers up to 20. Each flap has a number of Seussian animals or objects behind it. The order of the numbers is scrambled across the two pages so your child can also learn to look for numbers in order, as a way of reinforcing counting skills. The second two page spread is from Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? The child is encouraged to make the appropriate animal sounds. These sounds are printed out, and this spread provides experience and skill in letter and word identification, and oral reading.The third two page spread is from There's a Wocket in My Pocket! This section is good for beginning readers because the animals behind the flapped items rhyme with the flapped items (like wocket and pocket). Your child can then learn a few sounds for consonants by seeing and hearing how changing one letter changes the sound and meaning of the whole word. With the clue of the flap item, this section also helps with basic word decoding. The fourth two page spread is from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. This section features a full rhyming scheme. "From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere." This rhyming futher reinforces letter identification to help with word decoding. By making this section easier to memorize, your child may well start to "read" this section to you before the other ones. The fifth two-page spread is from Dr. Seuss's ABC and has all 26 letters in it. Again, they are not in exact order, so your child can also learn the alphabetic order by working with this. The Cat in the Hat returns as the host for this adventure. Having had so many examples of the importance of letter identification in the immediately prior three sections, this is a good place to introduce the whole alphabet. Most children will probably want to do this book from front to back every time. That may seem like a lot for you to read with them, but the learning experience is very good that way. I urge you to follow through with that approach if your child likes it. With over 70 flaps to turn over, there's plenty of interactivity to keep boredom at bay.If you find your child is doing much better on some sections than others, you might move onto the rest of that book at that point. Most children will find some material easier than

Although advertised for the toddler and preschool set, my son adored this book even at 9 months old. He is now one year old and is by no means tired of it. He can stay on one page for at least fifteen minutes flipping the flaps open and closing them again. I imagine that when he is old enough to understand letters and numbers and opposites he will still be as engrossed with it. I think the good size of the book and the very colorful illustrations add to the appeal.

My daughter absolutely adores this book! It takes all the things that make Dr. Seuss so GREAT without all the long, tongue-twisting stories for parents to read! I PROMISE you will like this AS MUCH or MORE than your child does! There are so many flaps it keeps my daugher entertained for up to 30 minutes at a time--THAT is AMAZING! No other book we own can do that! The first 2 pages are from THE CAT IN THE HAT (counting); pages 3 and 4 are from MR BROWN CAN MOO! CAN YOU? (animals); the 5th and 6th pages are from THERE'S A WOCKET IN MY POCKET! (fun creatures lurking about); the next 2 pages are from ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH (opposites); and the last two pages are from DR. SEUSS'S ABC. All the bright colors not only make the book visually appealing but serve as yet another training tool!Lift-the-flaps is the rage these days because most books I think are so hard for children to turn the pages but the flaps are small like their hands and fingers! PERFECT, PERFECT, PERFECT! 10 STARS! THE CAT IN THE HATS' GREAT BIG FLAP BOOK is a MUST OWN! You will not be disappointed! Trust me!

Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute. To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. The Cat in the Hat was one of her picks.I have always thought of this book as a metaphor for the sort of "make believe" thinking that children like to do and are good at. The setting is a cold rainy day, and the children's mother isn't home. I have always transformed that into they are playing in their room while their mother is busy elsewhere in the house. Suddenly, a mysterious cat arrives who can do remarkable jugging (until he drops everything) and brings in a fun box (with two little creatures who fly kites). A parental voice, however, is always present in the form of the children's fish who constantly warns them to get rid of the cat in the hat. Suddenly, the mother is spotted about to reenter the house. The children are panic-stricken. The house is a mess! What to do? They are obviously about to be really in for it. I can feel the adrenaline rushing even now as I remember similar situations with friends as a child.But then, the cat in the hat returns with a miraculous device which cleans everything up! And then he is gone, just as their mother steps in. She asks, "Did you have any fun? Tell me. What did you do?" The two children don't know what to say. They ask you what you would do if your mother asked you. The ending is wonderful because it sets up a wonderful opportunity to talk about the story. Would the child let in the cat in the hat? Would the child ask the cat in the hat to leave and when? Was the fish correct in warning the children? What are the other reasons not to let strangers in? Why should you tell your mother if things go awry, or not? In the course of the discussion, fears that the story probably raises can be dealt with in a constructive way that reduces fear in the future and improves communication in the family. Most children have these kinds of fears, but aren't usually willing to bring them up. So the book gives you the excuse to work on improving their security.This is one of the more difficult Dr. Seuss books for beginning readers, so you'll be reading this one to your child for a while. The appeal to the child is very much in the idea of playing unrestrained in the house. Almost no child is allowed to do that, and the consequences are pretty funny for the child if they are happening to someone else. If you want to see the earliest versions of the cat in

My 3-year old loves this book. He's a huge Dr. Seuss fan, so he's familiar with the different scenes. He had a little trouble opening the flaps for the first time - parents, you'll have to help them on the first go-through.