Virtual Book Club for Kids: Dr. Seuss--Bartholomew and the Oobleck

If you are looking for Fairy Tales in Different Cultures, it is here.

This month the Virtual Book Club for Kids is featuring Dr. Seuss. Now I must admit, I was not too excited about Dr. Seuss. I feel like he is so well known and so over done, however I still visited the library and found some books I had not read by him. We have really enjoyed reading his books and have found some new favorites.  Here is a collage of all the books we own or took out of the library except one, My Many Colored Days, since it did not have a title on the cover. This however is one of my favorites since it hits so many lessons--colors, moods, etc.

For those of you who are new and do not know anything about the Virtual Book Club for Kids, I am joining a group of wonderful bloggers who each month pick an author for the month and then host a blog hop sharing one of the author's books and an activity, craft, etc. to go with the book. You are invited to join in the blog hop and link up all your Dr. Seuss (this month) book activities. It is a great way to find new books and new ideas to go with the books. The amazing blogs I am joining in hosting this book club are:

Toddler Approved - Rainy Day Mum - Adventures in Reading with Kids - 3 Dinosaurs - Royal Baloo - The Educators' Spin On It - Inspiration Laboratories - Pleasantest Thing - Edventures with Kids - Two Big Two Little - Playing With Words 365 - Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Outlaw Mom - Mommy and Me Book Club - Crafty Moms Share - No Twiddle Twaddle - The Good Long Road - Ready. Set. Read 2 Me - Reading Confetti - Mama Smiles - Juggling with Kids- Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas - Creekside Learning - Creative Family Fun - The Usual Mayhem - Teach Preschool - PlayDrMom - CraftoArt - Here Come the Girls - Being a Conscious Parent - Smiling like Sunshine - Crayon Freckles - Train Up a Child - Smile Play Learn - Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Coffee Cups and Crayons - Having Fun at Chelle's House- Love, Play, Learn - Juggling With Kids - Motherhood on a Dime

If you have been following the Virtual Book Club for Kids for awhile you will notice we have some new hosts.

Now another exciting resource for Dr. Seuss is www.seussville.com. You can visit there and find games, activities, printables in the teacher and parent sections. Above are some of the printables we printed and have done. We have many more to try. This is also our first post of this month's author. We have done some activities for a couple more of his books which we will share later in the three week blog hop time. Plus Dr. Seuss's birthday is March 2nd, so expect to see a lot of Dr. Seuss on the web (which also corresponds to Read Across America).

Today I am going to share with you, our projects with Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Now this is one of the books we took out of the library. I had not read it or heard of it, but we enjoyed it. For those who do not know the story, the King of Didd gets angry with the sky since sunshine, rain, fog and snow are the only things that fall from it. He wants something different since he is a special king. He has his page boy, Bartholomew, call the magicians. Bartholomew tries to talk him out of calling them, but he is ordered to call them. The magicians go to their mountain to perform the magic and have promised to have oobleck fall from the sky. No one including the magicians know what oobleck is or will look like, but it is not sunshine, rain, fog or snow, so the king wants them to do it. The next morning oobleck starts falling and Bartholomew discovers it is green and sticky--think slime but stickier. Birds are getting stuck in their nests from it. He goes to warn the people of Didd to stay inside but runs into oobleck trouble everywhere he goes. Soon the oobleck is not staying outside, but starts to come into the palace. The king gets stuck to his throne. He orders Bartholomew to go get the magicians, but he cannot since they are locked in their mountain cave and which cannot be opened by him. They decide to come up with some magic words of their own and Bartholomew suggests the king say "I'm sorry." The king gets upset since he is king and should not have to apologize. But after getting frustrated and crying the king says, "I'm sorry. It's all my fault." and the oobleck stops and the sky clears. And all of the oobleck that has fallen melts away so all the people and animals become unstuck.

We of course did the oobleck coloring page of the king stuck in it found at Seussville. After reading the story for the first time, we happened to make popcorn (using a hot air popper) and noticed the popcorn flying everywhere. We commented on how popcorn would be better than oobleck to fall from the sky. It is less sticky and soft and edible. Then for an activity we decided to try to make oobleck. Ok, we really made goo, but we pretended it was oobleck. We followed the recipe/tutorial at Science Sparks for glow in the dark goo, but we did not add the glow in the dark paint. She happened to share it again on her Facebook page right when I was going to go look for a goo recipe. This was the first time we made goo, so we didn't really know what to expect. My daughter who does not like to get her hands dirty usually absolutely loved playing with it. She got upset when I told her we needed to clean it up. It definitely has a very strange/unique feel to it.

We used a cup of corn starch and then I took a cup of water and mixed a couple of drops of green food coloring into the water and added it slowly to the corn starch. Otherwise we followed the tutorial at Science Sparks. When I mentioned to my mother what we were doing she thought we should be using corn meal. We tried it and it did not make a good goo, so we went back to our corn starch.

Now it is your turn to share your Dr. Seuss book activities. I know in the past I have some posts about Dr. Seuss. Here is how we celebrated his birthday last year. Here is my Multicultural Monday post on The Sneetches and What Was I Afraid Of?

Books that Make Imaginations Soar for Ages 2 - 8

Disclosure: I was sent these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Today I am sharing some fun picture books that are for ages in the range of 2 to 8 and they make your imagination soar. The first book is Pop! by Jason Carter Eaton and illustrated by Matt Rockefeller. 

Green Eggs and Ham Activities

Since Saturday is Dr. Seuss' Birthday and Saturday is Sharing Saturday here at Crafty Moms Share, I thought I would share our activities and crafts to go with Green Eggs and Ham. Now this is Steve's favorite Dr. Seuss book. We actually have it on DVD and watched it with Hazel as we were kicking off this month for the Virtual Book Club for Kids. (We normally try not to let her watch television unless one of us is sick or a special occasion.) I was going to wait until tomorrow to share this, but if you want to do our activity you need a good two days for it to work, so I'll share it today.

For those who do not know, the Virtual Book Club for Kids is a group of amazing bloggers who focus on an author each month and post about one of that's author's books with an activity, craft, snack, etc. to go with it and then host a blog hop. February's author is Dr. Seuss and this is our third book and activity this month. We did Bartholomew and the Oobleck and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.

First I will share the Green Eggs and Ham sheets we found at Seussville.

Hazel and Steve enjoyed playing Tic-Tac-Toe with green eggs and ham pieces. Steve also got the colored page since it is his favorite book and hung it in his office.

Felt Green Eggs and Ham

Next I cut some white wool felt and needle felted some green for the yolks and needle felted a small egg shape. I also cut some green felt to be a piece of ham. I decided to be lazy and glued it instead of sewing it. Hazel decided she would be Sam and I would be the other character who Sam harasses to try the green eggs and ham.

Green Egg Outside and Inside

Then we did the Naked Egg Experiment shared by We Made That at Sharing Saturday and also shared by Science Sparks and others the past year. Since we had three eggs that were going bad, I figured we would try it and we took it one step further. Two of the eggs we put in a container with vinegar and green food coloring. Here are our results.

When we bounced them in the sink, the membranes broke. That is what the green is in the last one. The inside of the egg came out normally and washed down the drain. Hazel has not let me "crack" the last one yet, though so she could play with it a bit more.

Now it is time for the blog hop. Please share your Dr. Seuss ideas here. And a very Happy Birthday to the late Dr. Seuss!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Last Saturday when we went to Lakeshore Learning Store for their free craft, we discovered they were celebrating Dr. Seuss' Birthday, which is today! Not only did they have their free craft but they had story times and other crafts. Hazel made this Thing Hair there. They had all sorts of ways to decorate it. It was precut by the employees but it looks like they used a wavy scrapbooking pair of scissors.

Today we made easy Cat in the Hat hats. We used a paper plate, a piece of white or red construction paper and red or white crepe paper (streamers). We glued the streamers on to the construction paper to make the stripes. Then curled the construction paper to form the top part of the hat and cut out the inside circle of the paper plate and taped the tube of construction paper in.

To tape them in we cut slits so it would fit the curve better.

Then Hazel attempted to get a picture of me. It took several times, but she managed to get me and the hat in a picture. Not a very good picture, but a picture.

This afternoon we also made some cupcakes and took out some Dr. Seuss book from the library. Our birthday celebration continues for Dr. Seuss. I finally used the silicone turtle cupcake cups I bought. (Steven loves turtles so I got them for him.) They are perfect Yertle, the Turtle cupcakes. Too bad we didn't get that book.

I quickly frosted the cupcakes. Hazel picked out the pink frosting at the store. She of course wanted to add more to hers.

Then she added some sprinkles to all of them in her style.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Look later on for a new knitted swap idea. I'm hoping to post it today or at least over the weekend. And of course Sharing Saturday will be starting up tonight!!

Books for the Young

Disclosure: I was sent these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Today I am going to share books for your youngest kids. The ages of these books range from baby to kindergarten. They are a variety of board books and picture books. The topics range from travel, family, transportation and more!! I hope you will check them out for your little ones!!

A Look at Massachusetts and Its History

Disclosure: I was sent these books free of charge in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This year and last year Hazel's social studies unit is on the history of Massachusetts. As a result I have been gathering all the books I can find with a connection to our home state. (The truth be told I'm gathering books about all the states so I can expand our knowledge on each of them, but more on that below.) We also spent time doing some of the historical things in our area and looking at some of our past adventures. So today I am going to share two books about famous Massachusetts residents and share some of our adventures. The first book is Imagine That! by Judy Sierra and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish

Another favorite Dr. Seuss book at our house is One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish. Since Dr. Seuss is the February author (and his birthday is this Saturday), it seems only fitting to do something with this book.

In church the church school has just finished studying the story of Jesus Feeds 5000. Part of the three to five-year-old classroom was passing bread at prayer time. The Christian Ed Director had bought a package of Goldfish bread which of course seemed perfect since it was both a loaf and a fish. Since they did not use them all and Hazel loved them, the Christian Ed Director had me bring them home for her. We used them for our activity with this.

We used food coloring and milk to make the red and blue. Then to make the black I added green to the red dyed milk. Hazel loved this activity. She did not try the painted bread, but loved painting them with eye droppers.

We also did a few of the sheets from Seussville. We did a matching opposites. I had to help Hazel of course since she could not read them, but she liked connecting them. And we did a color page.

Last week we shared our activity and sheets on Bartholomew and the Oobleck. And of course this is a blog hop, so please add your Dr. Seuss posts to our list!

Sharing Saturday 13-9

Thank you to all you shared last week! We had some amazingly creative ideas shared. If you have not had a chance to check out all of the wonderful posts, please do so. Also make sure you check out my co-host, Having Fun at Chelle's House for Michelle's Features. This week she is featuring some of the wonderful Dr. Seuss ideas shared last week since March 2 is Dr. Seuss' birthday! 


This week I get to feature the most clicked! By far the most clicked was from Toddling in the Fast Lane and it was her Say It Two Ways Thursday Link Party and the one she linked up had food as her features. For her most recent and still open link party, go here!

My next feature is a bit of favoritism/self promotion. My dear friend, Kelly, from Happy Whimsical Hearts shared her knitted farm!! If you have been following here for the past year, you may remember I am the one who organized the farm swap last March. Kelly finished hers and gave it to her children for Christmas. (My squares are still sitting in my craft room untouched.) When Hazel looked with me at the pictures she said, "Mommy, I want one of those. Can you put it on my wish list?" (Every time she wants something that I don't want to buy at the time I tell her I'll put it on her wish list. If it is something I want her to have, I do put it on her wish list and if not, I don't. There are so many things on her wish list, she will never get them all, so she won't know.) Seeing Kelly's has motivated me to get knitting again. I couldn't help sharing a few pictures of it. Of course Kelly is also very talented in many ways and has many beautiful animals and other additions to her farm.

Now onto some of my other favorites.

1) From Raise a Boy: Make Your Own Graphic T-Shirt (Now I may have picked this since we are planning Hazel's first visit to Disney, but I loved the personal t-shirt!)

2) From We Made That: Milk & Soap Experiment (This looks like so much fun. I think we may have to give it a try!)

3) From My Nearest and Dearest: Small World Construction Site (Oh, I love the mud play dough and the green paper to fill and play with the trucks. I know a little girl who would LOVE this!!)


4) From Learning and Growing the Piwi Way: Not Your Usual Princess Stories (With a princess loving daughter, I found a few new books to check out and I added some in my comment that we love as well.)


5) From Wesens-Art: Spring Wreath (Ok, what I LOVE about this wreath is that the wreath itself is made of tongue depressors!! And yes, she gives a tutorial on how to do it!)
Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! If you were one of the ones picked as a feature here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

Button Code:

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My Week in Review: This week I shared Easter decorations including some new printable garlands as well as books, an African American Cinderella type story, Spring flower fairies, cinnamon whoopie pie recipe, and two Dr. Seuss book activities to go with One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and Green Eggs and Ham.

 

 

Now for This Week's Party 
 
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow Crafty Moms Share and Having Fun at Chelle's House via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).  

2)  Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc.  Remember to link to your actual post. 

3) Post the newly updated button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

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4) I would love it if you would follow me on Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest as well as Having Fun at Chelle's House at Facebook and Pinterest

Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share and Having Fun at Chelle's House permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest. 

Sharing Saturday #9

Wow!! What amazing entries we had in last week's Sharing Saturday. If you haven't had a chance to check them out you really should. There were some really great ones added at the end of it. I know I had a hard time picking features. It seems to get harder and harder the more entries we get. 

Sharing Saturday 15-9

Congratulations to Lori H. for winning the Winter Wonderful DVD Giveaway!

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! I was once again blown away by all the great ideas shared! If you have not had a chance to check them out, I highly recommend you do. My features this week are March Holidays, Artists and Some Favorites.

Cheap Doll Finds -- a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: Oriental Trading sent me these items in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. All printables are free but for personal use only. If you would like to share them, please use a link back to this post.

I have not done a cheap doll find post in awhile, but I decided it was time. One of my favorite places to look is Oriental Trading. They have so much for parties and crafts and if you are creative you can find some great items that work for dolls. I always start by searching "miniature" or "mini". I will admit Hazel and I have been checking things out for awhile since she is planning on having an American Girl themed birthday party this year. It was going to be a Beforever themed party until she got Saige as a hand-me-down. For the birthday party we knew we wanted to get the Mini Neon Tote Bags, so we will start with these. Hazel set up the scene as her dolls having a slumber party. The tote bags work for the girls to bring her things for the night. At Hazel's party they will be for the dolls to bring home their favors (and we are planning on getting the matching Neon Tote Bags for the girls). 

Sharing Saturday 18-9

It is time again for Sharing Saturday! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. So glad you joined us!!

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all your diverse/cultural posts be sure to share them at Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop. 

Mulitcultural Monday:Skin Color Collage & Picture Books

I've been trying to find some good projects to share with you, but since I have a 3-year-old right now, I also want them to be something she can relate to. Thus I am sharing with you lots of picture books and such. I have lots of ideas of things to do with a group of older kids, but just one, not as much. The first book I want to talk about is a classic that we all know, Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches and Other Stories.

While reading this Saturday morning, Hazel and I took the time to talk about the pictures. Why do the plain belly sneetches look so sad? Do the star bellied ones? Why are the star bellied sneetches so mean to the plain bellied sneetches? These are a few of the questions we discussed and several of them were asked by Hazel. This is a wonderful story showing that looks do not matter. You can equate the stars to so many of the prejudices in our world--skin color, sexual orientation, disability, gender, age, etc. For those who do not know the story, the star bellied sneetches think they are the best sneetches and will not talk or associate with the plain bellied sneetches. Along comes a man with a machine to put stars on the plain bellied sneetches for a price. Then he has a machine to take the stars off the original star bellied sneetches for a more expensive price. They spend all of their money and day going in and out of the machines until no one can tell who is who. The man of course leaves with all of their money, but the sneetches realize that there is no difference between them.

The other stories in this book have similar themes or at least themes that teach lessons about differences, stubbornness, etc. The second story is The Zax. There are two zax in this story. One is a south going zax and the other a north going zax. The south going zax never go any direction besides south and the north only goes north. Well they bump into each other and neither is willing to step aside to let the other go, so the world grows around them and they miss out on their lives. Talk about a great story to talk about compromising and getting along. Hazel and I took the time to really discuss this and what was happening in it.

The next story, Too Many Daves, Hazel did not seem to like and asked me to stop reading in the middle of it. It is about a mother who named all of her twenty-three sons Dave. Needless to say it is about the confusion of having the same name.

The last story is a story I remember from my own childhood. I remember in kindergarten the class always wanted to listen to it during quiet time. (The teacher had it on an album.) It is What Was I Scared Of? It is a story of a creature (it is Dr. Seuss so I don't know what type of creature it is) that meets a pair of pale green pants with no one inside them one night. The creature then tells of a few more times where he runs into the pants at night. Needless to say the creature is scared of a pair of pants that can walk, ride a bike, etc. In the last instance of them meeting the creature screams for help but then notices the pants are crying and trembling with fear as well. He comforts the pants and then whenever they meet they say hi. Again, a great story for relating how people who are different do not  mean you have to be afraid. Something I need to work on with Hazel a bit more.

Now for a few more books and a project. You may remember a few weeks ago we explored the book The Color of Us by Karen Katz. We played with mixing paints to make the different shades of skin. This project goes right along  with it and could be used with The Color of Us as well as these books.

Shades of People by Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly is about the different shade of skin color. It has different pictures of all different shades and talks about skin like wrapping paper where you cannot tell what is inside a person.

The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler is about how we all have skin and it is yours, but your skin does not make you who you are. You still dream, think, act like you not based on your skin color.

All Kinds of Children by Norma Simon is another book talking about the similarities and differences between children around the world. All children need food and live in houses and have belly buttons. The houses may be different, but everyone lives somewhere. It goes on like that. It is a nice story bringing that we are all people no matter what our differences are.





Now for our simple project. I gave Hazel a bunch of magazines, catalogs and newspaper ads and had her cut out pictures of people of different colors. I helped with some and had to do some trimming on a few. Then we pulled out one of her The Colors of Us paintings to make a collage. I wanted her to glue them over the paint colors we came up with but she did not want to ruin her painting so we glued them on the back.

This gave her great practice in cutting!! Plus recognizing the different shades of people. One of my goals has been to get her comfortable with seeing people of different colors. We tend to have a mostly white community around us, but I want to expose her to the differences so she can be comfortable with anyone.

Do you have any good multicultural/diversity books to share?

This is where I link up...

Virtual Book Club for Kids: Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle

 Disclosure: I was sent the seahorse craft kit to review free of charge from Oriental Trading. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I added links to the particular products for your convenience, but not for any compensation.