Thursday, May 24, 2012

Nonfiction, the other part of the library, part 4


Books on manners and social skills are a very mixed bag.  On the one hand, many gifted children struggle with social skills and it helps to spell social rules out to them.  On the other hand many of the books we found in our public library on this subject were dry and uninteresting.  Its probably easier to address manners and social skills with role playing (come one, let's put those stuffed animals or (gasp!) Barbie or (gasp!)  Disney Princesses to good use here)  or while reading story books.  We actually like Ni Hao Ki-lan (I know, its not even close to classic literature) and Mo Willems picture books for addressing age appropriate social skills.

Reading about technology can be fun.  Transportation and construction are great favorites in our house, as well as very easy to apply to real life. My kids could sit for hours watching the houses hit by last year's hailstorm be fixed, and now they know all about it, too.  Grown up books on home repair might seem pretty benign but watch out for the magazines (like Handy Magazine)--they are targeted toward macho men and sometimes have advertisements for um... man stuff (hey, this is a G-rated blog, ok?)

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