Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Kansas City, KS

One of the things that happens soon after your little one heads off to preschool is the coming home of the dreaded incident note. The "your child bit someone today" or "Your child hit someone today" or "Your child pulled out his junk and peed down the slide in front of all his friends today".

It hurts, as a parent, to know that your baby is acting inappropriately, probably out of an inability to find the right words to express feelings or just to get a little attention (negative is just as good as positive to the toddler Id.)

One of my favorite things to help my kids through these kind of learning transitions is to find a book which speaks to to their emotional state and age/understanding level.  Here's a few of my faves.

• I Was So Mad by Merced Mayer - the much-loved little critter character finds that everything he wants to do gets squashed, until he decides to run away. Instead his friends invite him out for baseball, and he forgets all about his anger from earlier.
• It's Hard to be Five - Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell - Who'd have thought actress Jamie Lee Curtis would write a kids book which so perfectly captures the angsty confusion of being five years old - not old enough to control one's emotions, but too old to be considered a baby anymore. 
  
• Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak - What kid can't relate to a story about a boy with a vivid imagination and a knack for trouble, who when sent to his room for misbehaving creates an imaginary world where he rules everything, even the monsters.
  
• Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day - Judith Viorst - while probably not that appropriate for toddlers and preschoolers, Alexander and his very bad day will fit right in with the kind of day your grade schooler might just have lived through.  And it's good to know it's not just them.
  
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