Imagination Station Books

I have read quite a few recommendations online for the Imagination Station series books as a children's read aloud. We haven't done any read alouds with Snootz yet so I thought these might be good books to try. When I'm referring to a read aloud I mean a book we read to him with no (or very few) pictures.  I was interested in doing this to continue to develop his listening skills, reading comprehension, vocabulary and enjoyment of reading. You can read about some additional benefits here.

The Imagination Station series is Christian-based adventure books and they are recommended for children ages 7 and up. I wasn't sure if our four year old would be ready for them but I decided to give them a try anyways. I figured the recommended age was assuming the child would be reading the book on their own.  So after shopping online a bit I decided to order the first 4 books in the series from Amazon. I had first looked for preowned books on eBay and Half but didn't find any so I decided to purchase new from Amazon since these books were part of their 4 for 3 promotion (buy 4 books for the price of 3). I then used a gift card I earned from Swagbucks to help pay for them. I absolutely LOVE Swagbucks. Stay tuned for more on Swagbucks. I'll post about that sometime later this week.

So the Imagination Station books were delivered last week and I started reading book one, Voyage with the Vikings, to Snootz over the weekend. We have read seven chapters so far and he is really enjoying the story! At times I've thought he is losing interest in the book because he gets fidgety but I'll ask him a question about the story and he is able to answer.  He also never wants me to stop reading and keeps asking for me to read more.  There are some words that he is not familiar with but this is a great opportunity for him to continue to expand his vocabulary and to learn about historical figures and geography too. There is a vocabulary list and historical information provided on the Imagination Station website. I didn't prepare anything for him before starting to read so we'll probably backtrack a bit and go through some of the vocabulary and historical information after we finish the book. I'll try to be better prepared for book 2 and I'm sure we'll read all the books again at some point anyways. I'm just glad he's enjoying the first book so well! I'll give you an update when we work on the vocabulary. I haven't decided how I'm going to do it yet. I want to keep it enjoyable for him so it's something he's excited about and wants to do.

Every child is different so just take your child's lead with the types of books they want to read and have read to them.  You know your child best and are the best person to determine whether they are ready for a certain type of book.  And if you try something and it doesn't work, just put it on the shelf and try again in six months or a year.  So tell me, have you had success with read alouds?  If so, what books have your children enjoyed most?