First Friends

Join a class of kids at daycare as they find triangles, squares, diamonds, and other shapes in their paintings, blocks, and dolls at play time ? then clean up together and transition to circle time! Bilingual Spanish edition AGES: 1 to 4 AUTHOR: Mk Smith Despres is the author of the First Friends board book series, as well as Night Song and There's That Sun Again, and was named a 2024 Green Box Artist in Residence. Mk has worked as an educator for over 15 years with kids and adults with disabilities. They write, teach, and read lots of books with their family in western Massachusetts, USA. MkSmithDespres.com Aya Watanabe is a Japanese illustrator who loves to explore imaginary worlds and to express her inner child through art. Creating fun content for kids is her passion. She lives and works in Tokyo, Japan, with her pet caterpillars. aw-illustrations.com SELLING POINTS: . EARLY LEARNING CONCEPTS: Introduces a variety of shapes in an engaging, age-appropriate format. . SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING: Gentle social-emotional storyline shown in the artwork depicts children making a mess and then cleaning up together. . DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE ILLUSTRATIONS: The class of 8 toddlers and 2 grownups features a variety of skin tones and body shapes, and a child with a hearing aid. . DAILY ROUTINE / DAYCARE SETTING: This story focuses on ?free choice? play time, a fun and relatable part of the daily routine at a daycare. . INTERACTIVE: The final spread shows all the shapes in the book so that readers can go back through and find them all again. . SERIES: The First Friends series introduces readers to a repeating cast of characters in a daycare classroom, with each book focusing on a different early learning concepts? . LANGUAGE LEARNING: Bilingual text helps children and adults strengthen reading, speaking, and listening skills in either language.