Spring Board Books Round-Up

Disclosure: We were sent these books in exchange for honest reviews. All opinions are our own.

So I decided to share with you some board books today that have been sitting on my shelf. Since one of them is about spring I figured I better hurry up. Although it is just feeling like spring here, we are half way through it on the calendar. These books range in ages from baby to 3.

Board Book Round-Up

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for honest reviews. All opinions are my own.

Today I am sharing some six board books for through preschool. These books range in what they cover from fun stories to educational to Halloween. Plus one of our favorite bedtime stories from when Hazel was young. The first book is for babies. It is Look! Babies Head to Toe by Robie H. Harris and illustrated by Anoosha Syed. 

Virtual Book Club for Kids--Extraordinary Egg

It is time for the Virtual Book Club for Kids. This month the author is Leo Lionni. The book we will be featuring is An Extraordinary Egg. If you have any activities, crafts, etc. to go along with a Leo Lionni book, you can share it below!

An Extraordinary Egg is about three frogs who live on an island. Two of the frogs like to stay near their inlet while Jessica likes to explore the island. Jessica is always bringing back things from her explorations that she thinks are extraordinary. One day she brings back a large white pebble. This time Marilyn and August were truly astonished and Marilyn told them it was not a pebble, but a chicken egg.  Since Jessica had never heard of a chicken, she believed Marilyn.

The egg hatched and a long, green, scaly animal came out and asked where the water was. The frogs called this animal, Chicken. Chicken was a very good swimmer and taught the frogs some tricks in the water. One day Chicken saved Jessica's life when she was stuck in some plants at the bottom of the pond. From that day on, they were inseparable. Chicken joined Jessica on her explorations. One day a bird spoke to Chicken saying her mother has been looking for her. The bird took them to Chicken's mother. Chicken's mother called Chicken her little alligator. Jessica went home and told Marilyn and August all about it. They found it so funny that the mother called a chicken a little alligator.

Reading this book got us to thinking about what animals lay eggs. We too out Chickens Aren't the Only Ones by Ruth Heller to learn more. We learned the word oviparous which is the name for any animal that lays an egg. The oviparous animals are all birds, most snakes, lizards, crocodiles, alligators, turtles, dinosaurs (did), frogs, toads, salamanders, fish, seahorse, octopus, moonsnails, spiders, snails, insects, and the two mammals are the spiny anteater and the duckbill platypus (both mammals live in Australia). We used this information for our activity. We did it two ways: one with a homemade egg craft and one with plastic eggs.

With the plastic eggs, I collected some of the animals that would lay eggs and put them inside the plastic eggs. (Yes, I bought a Toob of animals for this, but used many we already had as well). Then Hazel opened each one to see what was inside. Our flamingo did not fit into the large plastic egg we had, but we pretended it did since flamingos lay the largest eggs of all birds. The animals we had were chick, duck, frog, alligator, flamingo, goose, turtle, beetle and dinosaur. She really enjoyed this activity and it was very easy to do since we had not put away our plastic Easter eggs yet.

Our next activity involved making three paper mache eggs. We did this by blowing up three water balloons and then covering them in strips of tissue paper dipped in a glue and water mix. Then we left them to dry overnight. When they were dry, I popped the balloons and slid an animal into each one. I had to cut the hole a bit bigger for the animals to go in.

Our Eggs

Then I lined them up and had Hazel guess which one was the alligator, the chicken and the goose eggs. She discovered she could see in the holes and changed her mind on all of them after peeking. Then she took away the eggs and animals so she could play with them.

That is our exploration of An Extraordinary Egg. Have you done some activities with a Leo Lionni book? Share it below and join all these wonderful bloggers who host the Virtual Book Club for Kids each month. 

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 - Growing Book By Book

- This Reading Mama - Fantastic Fun and Learning
 

An Upcoming Event: This summer there will be a Virtual Book Club Summer Camp at home for 5 weeks. Each week will feature a different theme and you will be asked to share links based on those topics--they do not have to be from books. To sign up, click on the button above! It starts June 24th and is geared to 2 to 8-year-olds.

Virtual Book Club for Kids 2012-2013

Sharing Saturday is still open!! Please stop by to share your child-oriented crafts and activities or to be inspired by the features from last week and what has already been shared this week!    
Well as August ends and September begins the end of the Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids ends, however we have decided to make it a year-long event!! As you know in June, our author was Mo Willems, in July the author was Audrey and Don Wood and August the author was Kevin Henkes! If you missed any, please stop by and see the great ideas everyone has shared.

So the Virtual Book Club for Kids is a group of 20+ bloggers who will host a blog hop for activities to go with the author of the month. The Bloggers 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  - Here Come The Girls - PlayDrMom

Today I am going to share with you our line up for the next year!! The blog hop goes live the third week of each month and the dates are included in my list below! To participate read a book by the selected author of the month and do some activity with it. Be creative and have fun!! Then blog about it and come here to link up at the blog hop!! It is a fun way to get your child reading with you and enjoying books! Plus you may learn about some new authors that you will end up loving! Check out are great line up!

September 17th-Lois Ehlert

October 15th-Amy Krouse Rosenthal

November 19th- Tomie de Paola

December 17th- Jan Brett

January 21st-David McPhail

February 18th-Dr. Seuss

March 18th-Julia Donaldson

April 15th-David Shannon

May 20th-Leo Lionni

June 17th-Gail Gibbons

July 15th- Jez Alborough

August 19th-Donald Crews

I hope you will join us each month!!

Sharing Saturday 13-21

What wonderful ideas were shared last week! So many great recipes, crafts and lessons. If you have not had a chance to check them all out, please do so. Go be inspired! Then come back and share this week, so we can be inspired again! Our most clicked was a nail polish organizer from Melissa Kaylene is Willamette Valley Wonder Woman.

Then there were so many great ones to choose from last week, but I thought I would stick to my favorite math theme. Yes, I know my years as a math teacher keeps showing, but there were quite a few math related posts shared last week, so I couldn't resist.
Some Math Related Features

1) From Adventures at Home with Mum: Barley Measurement Early Learning Math

2) From Mums Make Lists: Explore Big Numbers with an Abacus

3) From PreK and K Sharing: Montessori Inspired Flower Themed Math Activities (Ok, this one was similar to one that Hazel tried at the school we are going to send her to next year.)

4) From Powerful Mothering: Dry-Erase on the Fridge Learning Numbers with Toddlers

5) From Measured Mom: Which one is different?

6) From Lessons In Homeschooling: Quilting, American Girl Dolls and Math

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here or earlier this week, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

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From Your Hostess: Another busy week but we shared our Virtual Book Club for Kids Post for May--An Extraordinary Egg by Leo Lionni, Exploring Finland with Food, Stories, Crafts and More for Around the World in 12 Dishes, and a wonderful book about the ingredients of chocolate chip cookies and where they come from and of course we baked the cookies!

 

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