Crafty Moms Share: book club

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Virtual Book Club for Kids Author and a Easter Craft

This month's author for the Virtual Book Club for Kids is Julia Donaldson. Before she was chosen for the book club, I had never heard of her. However shortly after the list of authors came out I checked each one out with a couple of books. We discovered Room on a Broom by Julia Donaldson. We will definitely be doing something with this book, but we are also loving so many of her books. Her picture books are all written in rhyme and so many of them have sweet messages to go with them. Julia Donaldson is a British author and you can learn more about her at her website. We will begin this month's blog hop on March 18th. I hope you will join us in discovering this wonderful author and find some great activities to go with her books.

Now for a quick craft to share. Last year, Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts shared some Easter candy wrapper art. Now I saved some wrappers from last year, but I don't know that we ever tried making any art. This year when I was pulling out the Easter decorations I found a basket full of wrappers and some plastic eggs. I got to thinking, I could buy a wooden cross for $1 at a craft store and wrap the wrappers (with the help of some glue to make sure they stay on) and make a very colorful and shiny cross decoration.

Hazel also loved making it with me. What a great use for those wrappers! Plus I love the colors. I cannot wait for spring to start!

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!

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!

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?

Virtual Book Club for Kids--Waddles by David McPhail

If you are looking for my Fairy Tales in Different Cultures for this week it is here!

I join many other wonderful bloggers to bring you the Virtual Book Club for Kids. This month we have picked David McPhail as our author. So each of us has chosen a David McPhail book to feature and do an activity with and will share it in a blog hop. If you have an activity to go with a David McPhail book please join us in the hop this month!

The host blogs are:

Now I must admit I had not checked out David McPhail previously. After looking at some of his books we fell in love. I also am happy to find he was born and grew up on the North Shore of Boston in Newburyport and is still a New Englander. That makes it all the more special for us!

Our Waddles

This month we choose Waddles as our feature book. After all I have a daughter who loves ducks so it only seemed fitting. Waddles is an adorable book about the life of a raccoon who waddles due to his size and therefore is called Waddles. He lives in a park near a pond where his best friend, Emily lives. Emily is a duck. (Did I mention that Hazel's latest new doll is named Emily? She got her shortly after we read this book a few times.) Waddles and Emily spend each day together until one spring Waddles finds Emily sitting on a nest. She has laid her eggs. Since Emily cannot leave the nest, Waddles brings her food each day. Then when Emily is yearning to swim, Waddles sits on the nest for her. That is the point a red fox decides to come and get an egg. After Waddles scares the fox away the eggs hatch. Waddles now has six best friends--Emily and her five ducklings. Life is wonderful until autumn arrives. The ducks need to fly south for the winter. Waddles is heartbroken throughout winter. Of course spring does return and so do his best friends.

For an activity we decided to make some finger puppets. I had seen this duck finger puppet at About.com. I thought it would be perfect to make finger puppets and use up some old pill bottles. We found different size bottles for the different animals and used some felt. Now I am going to say that I let Hazel decorate them for the most part and let her choose colors. She cannot wait to play with them. For the heads of the bigger ones we cut felt and used a bit of stuffing. We tried to make the fox and raccoon noses as well, but they are not perfect. She loves them just the same.

Our Emily

Our Ducklings

Apparently all the ducks had to have red feathers. Now I will admit we are a bit low on feathers, but she for some reason really liked the red ones.

I had a bit of difficulty with the fox's head and didn't get it glued or stuck as well as I had hoped. I'll try some more later. Hazel is very excited to act out the story now.

Now it is your turn to share any David McPhail book activities you have done. Or if you haven't, visit the ones shared here so you can learn about some more of his books!

Virtual Book Club for Kids--January Author is David McPhail

Sharing Saturday is still open to share your child-oriented crafts and activities!! Or come by and visit a few to be inspired!

As you may know I have joined a wonderful group of bloggers to present the Virtual Book Club for Kids where each month we pick an author and all choose a book by this author and come up with an activity or craft to go with the book. Then we post our ideas and open a blog hop where you can join us. The blogs hosting are:

One of the the things I love about this book club is it has introduced me to some great authors that I would not have read otherwise. This month is one of those authors.I had heard of David McPhail, but had not paid any attention to his books. I am not sure why. I guess I looked quickly at a couple and didn't think they were our style. However now that I have investigated them some more and actually read them, I am finding several I really like. I hope you will join us on January 21st for our David McPhail Blog Hop. Make sure you visit all the other hosts so you can see all the great ideas and learn more about David McPhail books!!

Gingerbread Play Date

Today we had a gingerbread play date with one of Hazel's best friends and his mother. To get started we had foam gingerbread men to decorate. I had bought them ages ago at the Dollar Tree I think. We had glitter glue, stickers, ribbon, googly eyes, beads and pom poms out to decorate them.

Hazel and I also read Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett (December's author of the month for the Virtual Book Club for Kids). Our friends were running late, so we did not have time to read it as a group, but Hazel and I enjoyed the story.

We had made some gingerbread cookie dough. I cheated and used a Betty Crocker mix I bought on sale post-Christmas. I had planned on making the dough from scratch, but didn't quite do it and then read my favorite recipe needed at least four hours in the refrigerator before rolling and cutting, and since they were due in just over an hour, I decided that wasn't going to happen. I had bought a white cookie icing for each of them and lots of candy and sprinkles to decorate.

We also made some gingerbread playdough. I combined the recipes from The Imagination Tree and Two Big and Two Little. I used all the spices in Two Big and Two Little's recipe, but the amounts and mix style of The Imagination Tree's recipe. We did not have a lot of time to play with it together, but sent some home with her friend and Hazel and one of her high school babysitters played with it more this afternoon. These pictures are a combination of both.

I know we were a little late for gingerbread, but we had fun anyway!

Annie and the Wild Animals

Each month I join the following amazing blogs to present the Virtual Book Club for Kids. Each month we choose a different author and each of us picks a book by that author to present with an activity, craft, etc. relating to the book. Then we ask you to join us in our blog hop with your own ideas from this author's books. The blogs participating are:

This month the author is the amazing Jan Brett. Not only are her books fun to read with great stories and some classics, but she also does beautiful illustrations! Jan Brett also has a page full of ideas to go along with her books.This month we decided to focus on one of our favorites by her, Annie and the Wild Animals.

Annie and the Wild Animals is about a girl, Annie who lives with her cat, Taffy. It has been a long winter with a lot of snow and Taffy has been acting strange. One day Annie cannot find Taffy anywhere. She gets lonely so she decides to make corn cakes and leave them for a wild animal which she hopes she will be able to tame to be her new pet. Of course she gets more wild animals than she wants and none are small friendly animals. She keeps making corn cakes until she runs out of corn meal. Then finally spring comes and Taffy returns with three surprises.

We decided to try to make corn cakes. When I first googled corn cake recipes I mostly found corn pancakes, so we started with those. We adapted a recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

We used about two tablespoons of margarine and cooked frozen corn kernels in a pan. Then we used non-fat milk, egg, corn and the vanilla and mixed them. In a separate bowl we measured and mixed the dry ingredients using whole wheat flour. Then poured the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and then cooked the pancakes. Hazel did a lot of the measuring herself and helped at the stove.

Then we also made Annie's Favorite Corn Cake Recipe from Jan Brett's site, which is more like a corn bread. We had this with some beef stew at dinner.

Then we also did a craft project. I enlarged some of the border pictures of the wild animals and Annie, and Taffy and her kittens. We made them into a mobile by gluing them onto some cardstock and stringing them. On the wild animals we wrote the things Annie thought about each (the moose was too big, etc.).

Now you can check out each of the other ideas to go with a Jan Brett book as well as add your own to our blog hop!

Days of the Blackbird--Virtual Book Club for Kids

Last week we kicked off this month of the Virtual Book Club for Kids with two of Tomie dePaola's books with angels.

This week we are sharing Days of the Blackbird: A Tale of Northern Italy. This sweet story is a way that La Giornate della Merla, The Days of the Blackbird, may have come to be. It is a fictional story to explain a true Northern Italian holiday.

The story is about a duke and his daughter. The duke is well respected and well liked in the town and many people come to him for his advice. However in the warm weather his daughter and he sit in their courtyard to listen to the birdsong. Their favorite bird is an all white bird which his daughter calls La Colomba. This bird is always the first to return in the spring and the last to leave in the fall and has the most beautiful voice.

Late one fall the duke falls ill. His daughter worries about him greatly. As the winter begins some of the birds begin to leave, but his daughter goes and begs them not to leave. She feeds them and puts out baskets with wool to keep them warm. Eventually all of the birds except La Colomba leave. She begs La Colomba to stay and he does. He sings on the windowsill for the duke every day. Then the coldest days of the year occur--the last three days of January and La Colomba needs to find more warmth and goes to sleep in the chimney. On the third day he returns to sing but the daughter is shocked to see a blackbird and realizes it is La Colomba. After that La Colomba is called La Merla (Blackbird) and never changes back to white. The duke of course becomes healthy and calls the last three days of January the Days of the Blackbird since it was La Merla that saved him.

Well we had quite a fun time with this one. Hazel has been asking questions about fire a bit, so I burned some scrap paper in a tin can to make ashes and then added water to them. We used this ash water as paint.

We started with La Colomba. We used a picture I found at DLTK-Growing Together.

Then Hazel painted the picture with the ash water and I helped a bit.

The result was La Merla, though not as black as if we had used real paint, but I liked giving the lesson of ashes and soot.

I also made the white bird pictured above using a pattern in Living Craft Magazine last year. I made Hazel a black one to go with this book. Now she uses them to act out the story. (Can I tell you how sad I am that Living Crafts is no longer published?)

Now it is your turn to share your favorite activities to go with Tomie dePaola books.