The Twelve Days of Summer by Jan Andrews

Everyone knows the song about the twelve days of Christmas. But how about the twelve days of summer? The Twelve Days of Summer turns the familiar Christmas carol into a cheerful summer song. This is a beautifully-illustrated book that is appropriate for children anywhere from preschool-aged to seven or eight years old.

The story begins when an unseen child finds a sparrow's nest with three eggs inside. Each day from then on, the child finds some delightful new treasure. I was told, before reading this story, that its best to actually sing the words to the child you're reading to, to the tune of the Christmas carol it is adapted from. However, when I read this story to 5-year-old Abby, she loved examining each page for several minutes, looking for the sparrow's nest, the goatsbeard seeds, the toads a-hopping, and so on. She also had lots of questions about some of the pages. For instance, she didn't know what a goatsbeard seed was, or a grouse, or a swallow. Singing the words would have probably caused us to rush through the book, but we went through it more slowly. Abby had no interest in hearing me sing the story to her, but for other children, hearing it sung, or hearing it both ways, might be fun!

After you read this story with your child, try writing your own Twelve Days of Summer story together! It doesn't have to be twelve days. You could create a story about the seven days of your family's trip out of town, or five of the best experiences your child had over the summer. Keep the number manageable for the child. Her final page may sound something like, "On the fifth day of summer, my vacation brought to me... five ice cream cones, four sunburns, three fireworks, two cousins visiting, and a dive off the diving board!" She can draw the pictures on each page, or paste photos or clip-art pictures instead,

You can also use this story to practice some simple math skills with your child. Before reading the story with the child, find clip art pictures of each insect, animal, flower, etc, found in the story. Print and cut out several copies of each clip art picture. You might want to print out more of each picture than you actually need, to make the project more challenging for your child. For instance, even though there are only four garter snakes in the story, print out seven or eight, so your child will have to count out four of them instead of just finding all of the garter snake pictures. Also, divide a piece of paper into twelve rows.

You may want to read the story once, all the way through, just for enjoyment. Now, go back through the story. As you read each page, have the child find the appropriate number of new animals, and paste them into one of the rows on the sheet of paper. In the end, your child will have a nice graph of all of the treasures found in the story!
Happy reading!