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Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator!

Author: Mo Willems | Illustrator: Mo Willems

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ISBN: 9780062004000

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Binding: Hardcover

Year Distributed: 2013 - 2014

Availability: Past Books

Themes/Topics: Friendship

Book Acticity

Amanda and her alligator have lots of fun playing together and surprising each other, but when Amanda's grandfather buys her a panda, Alligator must learn to make new friends.


Age Group 4 years

What’s Happening at this Age

  • Understanding that words are read from left to right and pages are read from top to bottom
  • Recognizing their name in print and other often-seen words, like those on signs name beginning letters or sounds of words
  • Matching some letters to their sounds
  • Developing awareness of syllables
  • May use familiar letters to try writing words
  • Retelling stories that have been read to them

Your child already knows how to read some words! Familiar favorite words like their own name, friends’ names, the name of their favorite restaurant, or other places you frequent, are part of your child’s sight word vocabulary. They aren’t quite decoding the words as they will later but they recognize the shape of the word when written out. Some logos like McDonalds or Subway also have color cues that your child can use to figure out the word. More and more, your child is paying attention to the visual clues of words. They are also continuing to make connections between the sounds and the letters that represent them. They may be telling stories by drawing pictures and sometimes adding letters or even a whole word to their drawings. This is a busy time in emergent literacy as your child is standing right on the edge of being able to read and write themselves!

Click here to see a full list of milestones for your 4-year-old as well as tips and activities for you and your child!

Why did we select this book?

This book is a beginning chapter book! Your child may already want to be like "the big kids" they know who can read. Preschool is an exciting time for children who can do so much more than they used to be able to do but they still have big feelings of frustration, anger, happiness, boredom, silliness and jealousy. Amanda and her alligator make it ok for those feelings to come through. Along with the different structure of the text, your child will learn about being a friend as well as some important concepts about print or how books work. With so many mini-stories in this book, your child is bound to find one that she connects with!


Book Acticity
Related Activities

Your preschooler is having so many new experiences both with you and without you at school or in play with others their age. So many emotions come from those experiences, some of which might be hard for your child to understand. Bring up Amanda and Alligator’s adventures when your child is bored, jealous, or impatient. You might be able to help them puzzle out what to do by thinking about what Amanda, Alligator, and even Panda might do.


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