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We know how hard our members work for the kids they serve, their schools or programs, and their communities. The First Book Network strives every day to put high-quality, diverse books into the hands of kids in need — books that might encourage a reluctant reader, reveal distant worlds, or open eager minds to new ideas. Books help reinforce students’ interests and celebrate their strengths.

The Concierge Services team at First Book is here to help members who need a larger quantity of books. For events large and small, we provide the kind of high-touch, hands-on service that relieves you of the burden of logistics and allows every child you serve to find a book they love.

We are available to work with educators and program leaders to create a book list or collection that will fit your program’s needs and reflect the diversity of the population you serve. As experts in children’s books — with backgrounds in children’s literacy, education, and publishing — our team can guide you through the process.

If you are:

• Planning a book fair
• Building classroom libraries
• Sending home books as part of an after-school/summer program
• Creating a shared reading experience, or
• Distributing school supplies or basic needs items

We can provide you with a range of book choices for any age group, create an affordable package, and track the order right to your doorstep.

Over the next few months, the First Book blog will highlight some of the work Concierge Services has done to connect kids in need with stories and characters that they love. We are here to make things a little easier — to equip you with the resources you need to do the essential work of changing your students’ lives.

If you serve children in low-income communities and need a large quantity of books or resources at the best possible price, reach out to First Book’s Concierge Services at [email protected] or call the Member Services Team at 866.732.3669 and ask for Concierge Services.

The post First Book Concierge Services: A Helping Hand For Large Orders appeared first on First Book Blog.

Children don’t need planes, trains and automobiles to be transported to different countries, different worlds or even different points of view. All it takes is an engaged imagination and the right resources and they can explore the far-off corners of their active and growing minds.

First Book offers books and resources that will stimulate children’s creativity this summer and take their imaginations on vacations!

Imaginative Play

Children can fly to outer space, perform surgery, put out an inferno, explore uncharted territories and do it all before lunch with the help of fun role playing costumes. When children imagine what it would be like to be an astronaut or a doctor their world expands and they begin to dream bigger. In this section you’ll also find puppets, building blocks and even a toy taco!

Fairy and Folk Tales

This section is filled with old classics as well as exciting new titles that will keep young minds captivated. These stories, legends and myths from different cultures all over the globe will give children endless worlds full of princesses, monsters and giant beanstalks to explore.

Fantasy and Sci-Fi

Books and stories from different dimensions and galaxies! Free from the rules of space and time, the books and stories in this section will help children think beyond what seems possible and imagine freely. Children can go to the beach in another galaxy or visit an amusement park in the future…the imagination vacation possibilities go on and on with these engaging books.

Arts and Crafts

All of the beautiful paintings or paper planes children dream up can’t come to life without the tools and resources they need. This section features a wide variety of kits and activities that will help children turn their creative ideas into fantastic works of art or fun puppets.

The post Take Your Imagination On Vacation appeared first on First Book Blog.

Today’s kids are playing less than any other generation.

Play is losing out to TV, recess times have declined and many children in low-income communities lack safe spaces to run, jump and be active.

But play is essential to kids’ learning. Play helps encourage kids to explore and use their imaginations, increases their ability to store more information and can improve literacy skills by building connections by oral and written expression.

As the school year ends and kids have more free time, you can incorporate play into all of your school or program’s activities – even reading and learning!

Try using the books and recommended games below to incorporate play time into reading time.

Wild Things Tag

Players: 10 or more
Space: medium to large
Materials: none

First, read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Then, mark off a large area to serve as the Island of the Wild Things. One player, the “King of the Wild Things,” stands in the middle of the island, while the rest of the players (the “Maxes”) line up on either end of the island.

When the King shouts “Let the wild rumpus start,” each Max tries to make it to the other side of the island without getting tagged by the King.If a Max is tagged by the King, he or she becomes a Wild Thing. All Wild Things (except the King) must keep one foot planted on the ground at all times while still trying to tag the Maxes.

The Maxes continue to run back and forth across the island until only one Max is left untagged. The last Max becomes King of the Wild Things and the game begins again.

All Tangled Up

Players: 6 or more
Space: medium
Materials: none

First, read Hairs – Pelitos by Sandra Cisneros, illustrated by Terry Ybáñez

Next, have the players stand close together in a circle. Then have each player hold one hand with anyone in the group except the person standing next to him or her.

Repeat with players’ free hands – avoiding anyone standing next to them or with whom they are already holding hands.

Now have the group try to untangle itself without letting go of anyone’s hand. It takes patience and lots of cooperation!

If you have twelve or more people, split into two groups of six and see which group can get untangled first.

Need more playtime ideas? Visit the Read and Play section on the First Book Marketplace to find all of the books and activities created by First Book and Kaboom! to encourage playing to learn.

The post Make Time to Play! appeared first on First Book Blog.

Want to keep kids’ minds and bellies full while they are out of school this summer?

If you provide summer meals to children from low-income communities through USDA’s Summer Food Service Program, you can access books, basic needs items and other educational resources on the First Book Marketplace.

When school is out, many of the students at your summer meal site may not have books or learning opportunities available to them. Here are some great ways to incorporate books, games and learning activities into your meal program this summer:

Establish a lending library. When kids come to your site, have books available that they can read while they are on site. Or let them “check out” books to take home, then bring back when they visit.

Develop an incentive program. Help encourage kids to keep coming back to your meal site throughout the summer.  Award points each time they attend your meal site. Encourage them to keep collecting until they have enough to earn a book of their own, a game or a craft kit.

Use books to help reinforce healthy eating habits. Stock up on books about healthy eating and healthy living to get kids eating their fruits and veggies. You can even send some healthy snacks home with them!

Throw a Reading Party. Show the kids at your summer meal site that reading is fun with a reading party. Select one book to provide to all the kids you serve. Invite community members and local “celebrities” to read to small groups of kids. Invite parents or caregivers to join the celebration.

The post How To Keep Kids Learning At Your Summer Meal Site appeared first on First Book Blog.

Looking for a great way to celebrate Mother’s Day? Read a book together and try these activities.

The books below are just some of the books identified by Search Institute that model behaviors that make families stronger: collaborating, encouraging and exploring.

Read these books together and use the activities listed after each book to grow together as a family.

Brothers At Bat: The True Story of An Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team by Audrey Vernick; illustrated by Steven Salerno

The kindness and generosity of the Acerra family helped their twelve sons become the longest-playing all-brother baseball team in history.

This book shows collaborating: learning, growing and solving problems with your child.

Try this after reading:

Your family is like a team. Each person plays a different role and has different talents. To help your family recognize these, sit down as a group and have each person write or draw pictures of a strength they think each member of the family brings to your team. Talk as a family about the work you do to support one another, as well as skills you can teach one another.

Abuela by Arthur Dorros; illustrated by Elisa Kleven

Take flight with Rosalba and her grandmother as they soar in Rosalba’s imagination all over New York City, visiting family and seeing places with special meaning to Abuela.

This book shows exploring: exposing your child to new ideas, experiences and places.

Try this after reading:

Maps offer fun opportunities to talk about and discover places of importance to you.
Talk with your child about familiar locations, like the places where friends and family live and work, then draw a map together that includes those spots. Or, ask your child to invent a world they’d like to travel to, then draw a map of it and pretend you’re visiting that place together. What do you see, smell or hear? Talk with your child about this new world and the things that make it different from your own.

My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits; illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska

Yoon feels unhappy after her family moves from Korea to the United States, until she gets encouragement at home and at school and learns to write her name in English.

This book shows encouraging: praising your child’s efforts and achievements.

Talk and ask questions as you read:

• Tell your child about a time you felt like you didn’t belong. ASK: Has that happened to you? What did you do? Did someone help you feel included?
• Yoon’s parents are proud of her when she sings to them in English. Remind your child about a time you were proud of him or her. ASK: What are you proud of?

Educators and program leaders serving children in need can find more books with tips and activities in the Build Strong Families with Stories section of the First Book Marketplace. Developed in partnership with  Search Institute, through generous funding from Disney, each book comes with a FREE downloadable tipsheet with tips and discussion questions like the ones above.

The post Celebrate Mother’s Day: Read a Book Together! appeared first on First Book Blog.

Stories can help children to develop into responsible, caring and contributing citizens.

Use the activities for each book below to teach good character traits like kindness, self-control and perseverance to your students.

To view all the books chosen and to see all the tips and activities suggested for each book, visit the Reading Into Character Section on the First Book Marketplace.

Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes

This story models self-control: being able to deny your short-term impulses in order to stay focused and pursue what is really important

Lilly loved school, until her teacher took away her fabulous movie star sunglasses, her three shiny quarters and her brand new purple plastic purse.

Ask these questions after reading the story:

• Lilly wants to show off her new things, even though she knows it’s not the right time. Why do you think is it so hard to wait when you’re excited?
• Even though Lilly loves Mr. Slinger, she is furious with him for taking away her things. Why is she so angry? Should she be angry?

Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman written by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by David Diaz

This story models resilience and perseverance: honoring your word and your intentions by working hard toward an important goal, despite setbacks and challenges

A small and sickly child, Wilma Rudolph wore a heavy brace on her leg when she was a little girl, but she grew up to win three Olympic gold medals for running.

Try this activity to learn more about resilient athletes:

Who are today’s women’s sports stars? Ask your students to choose their favorite female champions in track, basketball, tennis, soccer, and more. Research their lives. Create a Women’s Sports Hall of Fame for your classroom.

Those Shoes written by Maribeth Boelts, illustrated by Noah Z. Jones

This story models kindness and compassion: valuing others so much that you show them respect and offer help to them as a way of honoring their value

Like all the other boys in school, Jeremy wants black high tops with two white stripes. But when he finally gets a pair, he realizes that he needs to give them away.

Try this activity to practice kindness and compassion:

Investigate local charities that welcome donations of good-as-new clothing, toys, books, or other useful items. Be sure to play close attention to their donation guidelines. If feasible, organize a class- or school-wide donation drive.

Developed as a joint project with Character.org and with generous support from Disney, each hand-picked book in the Reading Into Character section is paired with a FREE downloadable tip sheet.

The post Teaching Good Character with Books appeared first on First Book Blog.

Creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration are critical skills for children to learn so they can succeed in today’s world.

Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China Translated and illustrated by Ed Young

When sisters Shang, Tao and Paotze get a surprise visitor while their mother is away, they have to figure out if it’s really their Po Po (grandmother) who is at the door.

Lon Po Po is about critical thinking and how you can use lots of clues to figure out a problem. Use these questions and ideas to get your child thinking and talking about the story:

• What clues did the sisters have to figure out
• The sisters tricked the wolf. Do you think it was right or wrong to trick the wolf? Why or why not? Have you ever tricked someone? What happened?

Home At Last written by Susan Middleton Elya, illustrated by Felipe Davalos

The Patiño family moves to the U.S. from Mexico and must learn to speak English and adapt to their new country. Despite some challenges, Ana’s family finds ways to support and encourage one another as they build a new life together.

Home at Last is about communicating and how being able to clearly share your thoughts and needs with others is important to feeling connected. Use these questions and ideas to get your child thinking and talking about the story.

• Ana and her family learn English when they move to America. Tell me about a time when you learned something new. What happened? How did you feel?
• Why do you think Mamá doesn’t want to learn English? How did she change her mind?

Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet

This real-life story shares the life of Tony Sarg, the talented puppet-maker who helped the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade come to life.

Balloons Over Broadway is about using CREATIVITY to build on existing ideas to make something new and different. Use these questions and ideas to get your child thinking and talking about the story.

• What are some different ways Tony uses his creativity in the story?
• Tony is always looking at his balloons and making changes so that they work better. Why was it important that he kept improving the balloons? How do you think about making something better?

Developed as a joint project with the Partnership for 21st Century Learning and with generous support from Disney, each hand-picked book in the Learn for Life section is paired with a FREE downloadable tip sheet. These tipsheets designed to help you equip the kids you serve with the key 21st century skills they need to thrive in school and in life.

The post Books that Teach Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication and Collaboration appeared first on First Book Blog.

Books are great tools for sparking conversation between adults and children.

They can inspire conversation and activities around a diverse range of topics, including feelings, imagination and different family structures. These conversations can help you share lessons with students and can deepen bonds between family members.

Use the books and activities below to get kids and families talking!

Marisol McDonald and the Clash Bash / Marisol McDonald y la fiesta sin igual (Bilingual, English/Spanish) by Monica Brown

Marisol’s birthday is coming up. She wonders how she can decide on a theme for her birthday party; all the things she loves seem to clash! All she really wants is to see her grandmother who lives in Peru, but visiting is difficult and expensive. However, with some creative thinking, there may be a way to plan the perfect party and see her abuela.

Try this activity with this book:

Have everyone in the family spend some time writing down the things that make them unique or one of a kind. Some specific prompts you may want to use are:

• My appearance is unique because…
• I’m unique at school or work because…
• I’m unique because I’m good at…
• I’m unique because I enjoy…

Share your unique qualities with one another, and talk about how you are similar and different.

Little Pink Pup by Johanna Kerby

Pink was the runt of a litter of 12 piglets. He had trouble growing and thriving until he was welcomed and cared for by a dachshund foster mom. Real photographs show the development of the unlikely bond between puppies and pig in this touching true story.

Try this activity with this book:

Talk and ask questions before, during and after reading the story together. One question you could ask is “Many people in our lives can show us that they care about us, not just our biological families. Who are some people who care about you? How do they show you that they care about you?”

Flower Garden by Eve Bunting

Flower Garden is a sweet, rhyming story about the work that goes into creating a very special surprise for a mother’s birthday.

Try this activity with this book:

Take some time to go on a nature walk by visiting a nearby park or walking around your neighborhood, and talk about what you see. Talk about the ways in which nature looks different during the different seasons. If possible, collect some bits and pieces of natural objects along your way and place them in a bag. When you get home, use the natural objects you have collected, glue, and some paper or cardboard to create a nature poster.

These are just three of the books from First Book’s Read Together, Talk Together section that can be used to start conversations. Made possible by generous support from Disney, each hand-picked book is paired with a FREE downloadable tip sheet.

For all of our tips and an even larger selection of books, visit the Read Together, Talk Together section on the First Book Marketplace.

The post Activities to Spark Conversation Between Adults and Children appeared first on First Book Blog.

Last week, we featured Roxana Barillas, Director of Hispanic Engagement at First Book. She shared her thoughts on the ways educators can connect with ELL families. This week, Roxana shares one book from  Build Strong Families With Stories that can help in engaging ELL families in their child’s learning.

One book in particular that resonated with me was The Wednesday Surprise by Eve Bunting, a book included in the Creating Routines and Traditions section of Build Strong Families With Stories.

From a cross-cultural perspective, I wondered how ELLs would respond to the conversation about these various family strengths, like “creating routines,” and apply that question to their family lives. The question of creating or maintaining traditions and routines in the midst of a different culture is central to ELLs’ experiences and can be a tricky issue for them to navigate.

The story includes a surprise as well as family celebration, and as the related reading guide suggests, celebrations encourage closeness that help a family grow stronger together.

The family featured in The Wednesday Surprise could be an immigrant family, but is not necessarily one. Even so, there are many aspects of the situation that may resonate with ELLs.  For example, the family has limited resources, and many ELL families will recognize the small details that make a child feel special, like a pebble the dad brings home. In addition, the dad is frequently away from home because of his job, and when the mom needs to work late, Grandma takes the bus to visit and spend time with her grandchildren.

At the same time, the book also offers amazing conversational opportunities with ELLs and their families because it includes routines and traditions that are part of the American experience, like going to the Y for baseball practice and having pot roast on a special occasion, while opening a conversation about how ELLs celebrate holidays and recognize milestones in ways that may be different from the custom of their adopted countries.

As ELLs get older, some of those family traditions become cherished memories, but like most children, ELLs also want to experience the mainstream. They seek affirmation and acceptance, and many find themselves wanting to do things they read and hear about from their classmates that are not part of their home culture. Perhaps they want to go trick-or-treating, go to a friend’s birthday party or have a sleep over. The questions prompted by The Wednesday Surprise can offer cultural nuances that open doors of understanding, perhaps in unexpected ways. These questions can help build a bridge for the delicate dance ELLs navigate between the home and school cultures, as well as expectations of them.

What I love about this book is that Anna, the child and one of the two main characters in this story, manages to do what many ELLs do: she manages to teach the adults a surprising and unexpected lesson by teaching her grandmother to read and giving her dad a gift to remember.  She also takes on some new responsibilities, something very familiar to ELLs, by bringing the gift of reading home to her family – an interesting twist when you think about kids who may not be growing up in a home where reading is part of the regular routine.

The post One Story to Engage ELL Families: The Wednesday Surprise appeared first on First Book Blog.