🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 🧠 Executive Function — Planning an activity, following multi-step directions, and seeing a project through to completion builds the executive function skills — working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control — that are the strongest predictors of school success.
- 🎨 Creativity & Imagination — Open-ended activities that let children direct their own play grow creative thinking, original problem solving, and the confidence to express personal ideas.
- 💬 Language Development — Narrating play, hearing new vocabulary, and describing what they're doing dramatically expands children's language range and the sentence complexity they'll bring to reading and conversation.
- 🎯 Focus & Attention — Sustaining engagement with an activity long enough to complete it builds the voluntary attention control that children need for listening in class, reading, and all forms of academic learning.
A Dragon on the Doorstep Written by Stella Blackstone
Illustrated by Debbie Harter
From The Book
"There's a tiger in the toy chest with a very fierce glare! Let's chase him in the bedroom and tell him to stay in there!"
About the Book
A Dragon on the Doorstep is about a boy and girl who encounter a dragon at the front door of their house. They lock the dragon up in a closet and then run away, but as the children go throughout their house, they find more visitors in various hiding places -- a lion in the laundry, a tiger in the toy chest and a crocodile in the closet. In the end, everyone ends up outside where they all play another game of hide-and-seek. The book comes with an accompanying CD in which the text of the book is sung by children's entertainer Fred Penner.
Author Stella Blackstone has also penned numerous other children's books including
Making Minestrone, I Dreamt I Was a Dinosaur and
Bear on a Bike. With Blackstone, Debbie Harter has also illustrated many children's books including
Thesauras Rex, Bear at Home and
Bear's Busy Family
From The Reviewer
A Dragon on the Doorstep is a completely wonderful book for an older preschooler, as some of the pictures may be a little frightening for the younger ones. The "sing-song" rhyme of just reading the story makes it a page-turner. My 5-year-old daughter loved where all the different animals were found; she thought it was really funny. She was very happy to find them all playing together at the end. The illustrations are bold and vibrant and very simple for a preschooler to understand.
The book's accompanying CD has four tracks on it including an introduction. The singer keeps the child's attention and captures the child's attention as much as the book can. The CD also has an instrumental track so the child can read or listen to an adult read the book aloud to the music as well.
I recommend
A Dragon on the Doorstep for children ages 4-6 years old.
Colorful Creations
The expressive and detailed illustrations show how the children are feeling -- either happy, excited or scared. The pictures are bright, colorful and bold enough for even the youngest of preschoolers to understand and enjoy. They are very simple and speak to exactly what the story is about. If your preschooler looks closely, s/he will "search and find" all of the other hidden animals on the pages throughout the book.
A Story for on the Go Preschoolers
My 5-year-old preschooler thought this book and accompanying CD was perfect for a ride home from school recently. Although she can't read yet, she was still able to "read" along with the CD because of what she was listening too. The pictures in themselves tell the story so even a nonreader can understand the story with or without the CD.
Book Details
Title:
A Dragon on the DoorstepReading level: Preschool to first grade
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Barefoot Books; Book & CD edition (September 6, )
Language: English
ISBN: 1905236662
What are Your Comments About This Book?
Share your comments with other parents who may be interested in this book and CD.
Preschool Activities for A Dragon on the Doorstep
Friendly Animal Hide-and-Seek Preschool ActivityRe-enact the story of
A Dragon on the Doorstep right in your own home. With just a few stuffed furry friends and an adult to play along, you can create your very own fairy tale game.
Listen to the Sounds Preschool ActivityWhat sound does a dragon make? Do you hear the bells in the background too? Spend some time just listening to the CD version of
A Dragon on the Doorstep to answer these and many more questions your preschooler may have about this story.
I'm
Mary Beth P. Adomaitis, the Preschool Activities writer for Preschoolrock.com. As a mom of a preschooler, I love hearing from other parents and teachers of preschoolers. If you have any preschool activity ideas, suggestions or questions, feel free to
contact me.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting screen-based media to 1 hour per day of high-quality, co-viewed content for children aged 2–5, and avoiding screens except video-calling for children under 2. The quality of content and whether a parent is watching and discussing together matters enormously — passive, commercial, or violent screen content has negative effects; educational co-viewed content has minimal harm. Screens are not a substitute for the physical, social, and creative activities that develop preschool brains.
