
Preschool
Preschool and kindergarten, all in one place. The honest version of these years: read aloud constantly, count real things, play games, and do about twenty minutes of something formal once your child is up for it. That is not a lowered bar. It is what the research and every experienced teacher will tell you, and it is why this shelf is mostly books and games.
How to use it: follow the child's stamina, not a schedule. Some five-year-olds will do a workbook page happily; some will not for another year, and both turn out fine. What matters at this age is that books are a pleasure and that nobody learns to dread the table.
The whole year in one place: The Whole Year: Kindergarten.
Shop our Preschool products below
Turtles (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 1)
Storms (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 1)
Superstars of the Sea Collection (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 2)
Wild Cats (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 1)
Play, Kitty! (National Geographic Kids Readers, Pre-Reader)
Roaring Rockets
- Astronomy & Space
- Engineering & Technology
- Story / Adventure
Why it works: Roaring Rockets sends Rabbit, Bird, and Mouse zooming to the Moon in a rhyming picture-book adventure packed with spacecraft details. Spacesuits, oxygen helmets, gravity gear, and the rocket's job become part of imagining how the friends can travel beyond Earth.
Cats (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 1/Co-Reader)
Amazing Airplanes
- Physics & Energy
- Engineering & Technology
- Story / Adventure
Why it works: Amazing Airplanes follows Rabbit, Bird, and Mouse as pilots, baggage handlers, and cabin crew in a rhyming trip through an airport and flight. The animal cast and wordplay carry practical aeronautics, from the cockpit and landing gear to flight safety and air-traffic coordination.
How to Be a Ladybug
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Comics / Graphic Narrative
Why it works: How to Be a Ladybug gives Dotty the larva a garden full of predators, rival insects, confusing body changes, and wings still to come. Her comic journey lets children discover that a ladybug's early stages look and behave differently from the familiar adult.
How to Be a Dragonfly (in Association with the Royal Entomological Society)
- Life Science
- Environment & Ecology
- Comics / Graphic Narrative
Why it works: How to Be a Dragonfly follows Chase from pond-dwelling nymph to airborne adult as a grasshopper narrator coaches him through danger, growth, and daring escapes. The comic plot makes each life stage, behavior, and pond adaptation something Chase must use before readers can see what he becomes.

