New Child's Play Books!

I love seeing Child's Play's big brown box of books show up on my porch every few months. The kids and I get to test drive new titles and see what we think. Child's Play is an independent publisher, specializing in whole child development, learning through play, life skills, and values. Their stuff is so pretty and fun. The latest additions to their collections got a thumbs up from us! Check it out.


The What's That board book series encourages guessing, prediction, and memory skills. Four titles in the series include CHOO! CHOO!, SNAP! SNAP!, TAP! TAP!, and TOOT! TOOT!. What's that noise? Lift the flap and find out! Lift the flap books are my go-to's with little ones. Always a hit! Familiar themes and vibrant illustrations will mean many, repeated, and fun-filled readings.

The Seasons board book series has a separate charm all its own (Titles include Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter). Each season has something special about it, and in these books you get to explore each one. You will follow these whimsically illustrated  children as they spend time discovering the joys of indoor and outdoor play. And the durability of these board books means you can tote them around with you in each season and read them indoors or out!

We also read a couple new Child's Play picture books and they were adorable! Crunch! by Carolyn Rabei features the cutest little guinea pig named Crunch. He loves to eat and is shocked when a mouse named Cheddar asks to share his food. Trade for a hug? Nope. But Crunch ends up regretting his decision and sets out to find the hungry little mouse.

The last book was Ailsa Burrow's The Jar of Happiness. In this sweet book, Meg shares her "jar of happiness" with friends when they are down and need a little lift. Then one day the jar goes missing. Can she ever be happy again? But Meg's friends help her find new ways to be happy. We loved the super-cute cat in this story; he made us smile and giggle!

All books that are definitely worth your time and great additions to your library!

Fun Books and Activities for October

Need some quick ideas to make October a cool month of reading? Look no further! I've got a few for you right here!

Monster fun with Go Away, Big Green Monster! 

Make your own books and story pieces of The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.

Enjoy the beautiful weather with some autumn reading adventures and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.

Spider fun with The Itsy Bitsy Spider at home... or in the classroom.

Cool Stuff to do with Spooky Carrots.

Beautiful creations with Leafman.

New, Fabulous Halloween Book and Activity!

Charlotte Gunnufson sent us a copy of her new book Halloween Hustle and the kids and I have been enjoying it immensely. I have actually had to get onto my kids a bit about them dragging the book all over the house (and out to the car on errand trips), before I got a chance to post a review while the book still looked nice and new!

I planned to sit down and read and play with the book today with My Little Reader since it's aimed at kids around his age (he's in kindergarten). But my older son (9) couldn't resist the fun and wanted to join us too! 

I thought it would be fun to make our own little skeletons that could do the Halloween Hustle as we read the story, and fall down just like the skeleton in the book. My Little Reader decided he wanted to make a mummy like the one in the book. After some hard work, and a couple revisions, he had it the way he wanted. We each attached our creations to popsicle sticks for marionette-style puppets. 

I used simple white yarn (because that's what I had in my craft cabinet) to attach the mummy and skeleton to the popsicle stick handles. We punched holes and used twisty ties (again, using what I had handy) to make the puppets' joints move so they could hustle. 

Isn't that an adorable mummy? I think so!

The story is full of fun and whimsical Halloween-type characters that are headed to a party on Halloween night (warning: there is a zombie in the story that is a little on the gross side). While observing the cover, My Little Reader wondered how the skeleton would be able to dance without falling apart since he has no skin or muscles, and he was right on the money with his wonderings. Turns out the skeleton has quite the trouble staying put together as he dances through this tale. 

The rhyming text makes it lots of fun. And we love that it has a happy ending for the skeleton. 

And it really says something when my nine year old thinks a picture book is cool enough to sit and listen to mom read it. 

The skeleton would be easy enough to use even without the string and popsicle sticks attached. You could make the jointed skeleton out of card stock and simply let your child hold him with his hands and make him dance. Be sure you use card stock - I don't think regular paper, or even construction paper, would be heavy enough to work very well. 

I have included a pattern for the skeleton that I made (below). I do not have a pattern for the mummy My Little Reader made. But your little reader could make their own mummy, or could create a puppet based on another character in the book. You could make all the characters and do a puppet show of the story!

Check out the book trailer here!

And learn how to do the "Halloween Hustle" here!



Have fun! And I would love to see some pics of your puppets you make!

SPIDERS!

October is a month of spiders at Literacy Launchpad. I've been doing my best to freak the kids out (in a preschooler-friendly, G-rated way) with these creepy crawlers. My favorite is my friend Harry that I bring along each week. He's a furry little fake spider, with a long tube attached to him, with a bulb at the end that you use to pump air through the tube that makes him jump and wiggle. I try to wear something that allows me to wind the tube through my sleeve and really freak them out when I make him move. But the first week in October I had on short sleeves and I still startled quite a few of my students. Then those very same students were startled the following week when Harry came back, even though they knew how he worked at that point. I love preschoolers! One little boy said, "It's a necklace! It's a necklace. It's a necklace... Right?" Hee.

We read The Itsy Bitsy Spider and The Roly Poly Spider to start off October. The Itsy Bitsy Spider lends itself well to some predicting practice. The kids like to see if they can guess what's going to send the spider flying. And The Roly Poly Spider is all kinds of fun, because it's kind of gross. So we have all kinds of fun ewwwing and ickking at each page turn. The kids all pointed out that this spider was "not a good friend." Indeed! Smart kids!

We reviewed and practiced the sequence of The Itsy Bitsy Spider with a fun activity in which we sent plastic spiders down a piece of a real water spout. This also helps connect this story to real life and make the story concept more concrete for the kids. Most of them ended up saying, "Oh! I have a water spout on my house too!" And then they could actually see just how a big gush of water might wash a spider out of a water spout.

The Incredible Book Eating Boy

Last week was the first time I've taught a Literacy Launchpad lesson in over a year (visit my other blog here to get a peek at WHY I've been gone for a while)! It felt WONDERFUL to be back at it. You have no idea how much I was missing it!

We kicked it all off with The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers. It's a fun book, and it works really well to begin a year of incredible reading. The kids all seemed excited about being dubbed "Incredible Book Reading Boys/Girls."

We played a game where we fed Henry's mouth books, and then when that didn't go so well (made our "Henry" sick) we fed his brain books instead. Of course, we first had to create some good books to fill up that brain of his. We ended up with books about dinosaurs, tornados, rainbows, and pumpkins to name a few.

This week it will be fun to see their reaction to getting to go to "reading class" again now that they know what it's all about.

Here are a few photos of us feeding Henry's brain.

At Home with The Itsy Bitsy Spider

My Little Reader loves the Itsy Bitsy Spider. Both the story and the song. His interest in the song is what initially prompted me to pull the book off the shelf for our first reading... way back whenever that was. Now he sings the song with all the verses from the book mixed in. The "up jumped the cat," one seems to be his favorite.

He's been singing the song a lot lately, which reminded me of this activity I learned from my favorite preschool teacher... Jeanne Bell (note: she was not my preschool teacher, she's a preschool teacher who I simply think is brilliant). When she does this activity with her students, she dresses up like Mother Goose and has this elaborate ruse she pulls off on the kids, which is hysterical. I have a video recoding of it somewhere. I should dig it up and put it online... She would kill me!

I'm not as awesome as Mrs. Bell, so I have never dressed up like Mother Goose. But I knew Isaac would have fun with this one even if Mother Goose didn't make an appearance.

So here are some photos of Isaac and I doing the Itsy Bitsy Spider activity. You'll need a copy of the book, some plastic spider rings (at least one for each of your children or students), a curved section of rain gutter (Home Depot or Lowes), and a plastic bin for catching the water (or a bathtub in our case here).

I suspect you can see where I'm going with this based on the supply list. Check out the photos for the rest.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.

Down came the rain...

and washed...

the spider out.

Allow the spider to climb back up the waterspout as many times as you wish... or can tolerate. Make sure every student gets a turn washing the spider down the spout. And of course, let them keep their spider rings to remember the reading fun!

Guaranteed fun, and helps solidify this classic rhyme in their little heads. My students could play this activity all day long, and My Little Reader would have too if I would have allowed... But I got really tired of holding the rain gutter. Wish I could come up with a solution for that. Got any suggestions?

Let me know if you try this one out with your kiddos, and how everybody likes it!

Do You Change Your Books with the Season?

I do my best to rotate the picture books that I have out for My Little Reader. (Sometimes "my best" is rotating them every three months.)

What I really enjoy though is rotating our books according to the seasons and the holidays. It's an easy (and educational) way to make your house more festive!