The Secret Elephant -- Book Review of a Story from WWII

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Yesterday was Earth Day, and we shared some beautiful puzzles with pictures from an Asian rainforest and a tropical coral reef. We also shared some facts about both places and how they need to be protected. The Asian elephants were pictured on the rainforest puzzle, and I mentioned that they are critically endangered. Today I get to share a brand new picture book (released today) about one Asian elephant and World War II. The book is The Secret Elephant by Ellan Rankin. It is based on a true story and is recommended for ages 4 to 8. 

Review of The Elephant's Girl

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

 

Today I am sharing a new novel that is the perfect summer read for intermediate readers (ages 8-12). Imagine surviving a tornado and ending up in the elephant enclosure of a zoo. You have no memory of who you are or who your parents are or even your age, but you are a young child. That describes the life of the main character, Lexington, in today's book, The Elephant’s Girl by Celesta Rimington.

Picture Books Review

With the start of December and Advent, I thought I would share each post where our Mouse and the Miracle Mouse (Holy) has been up to. (He now has an elf friend named Elfie who often is hidden with him.)

Holy on Window with Angels and Elfie Hanging on Tree

Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me a copy of this book free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Today I am going to share with you five wonderful picture books that help grow imaginations and wonder. These books will help the reader learn about the world and use their imaginations. We had so much fun exploring this five books and highly recommend them. I also shared some round-ups of crafts to go with three of the books. First I am going to start with a wordless book.

Animal Books & Crafts for Earth Day

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books (digital for stories and physical for crafts) in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Happy Earth Day! I am one who believes every day is Earth Day but today is the day the world celebrates this amazing planet and the nature that fills it. To celebrate today I am sharing three new children's books about animals with perfect messages for Earth Day and craft round-ups to go with them as well as two craft books with animal themes. We will start with the first two books. They are from the Surviving Wild series by Remy Lai. The series are graphic novels for ages 6 to 9. The first is Surviving the Wild: Rainbow the Koala. 

Where You Go....I Go Book Buddies Review & Craft

Disclosure: Parragon Books sent me a copy of this book free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always I am providing links to the book for your convenience.

For July's Book Buddies, Parragon Books sent us Where You Go ... I Go by Beth Shoshan and illustrated by Petra Brown. This is a sweet book told in the point of view of a young elephant talking to his mother. The book goes through a day in the life of the elephant. 

Virtual Book Club for Kids Bobo Books by Jez Alborough

Have you entered my current giveaway?

This month the author chosen for Virtual Book Club for Kids is Jez Alborough. We had not read any of his books but quickly fell in love with the Bobo series as well as the Duck series. Today we are featuring the Bobo series. I thought it would be fun for us to learn more about chimpanzees since they are an animal we do not know much about. But first let me tell you about the Virtual Book Club for Kids.

The Virtual Book Club for Kids is a group of amazing bloggers that have one author chosen for each month and each blogger chooses a book by that author and comes up with an activity or craft to go with the book. Then we host a blog hop which starts the third Monday of the month. We each link up our posts and invite others to link up posts about books by this month's author. The amazing bloggers 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 - Growing Book By Book

- This Reading Mama - Fantastic Fun and Learning

Ok, now onto our books. Bobo is a wonderful little chimpanzee. He is friends with many animals in the jungle but in particular an elephant and a lizard (at least I think it is a lizard, but it could be a frog). Each of these books have very few words. In fact most of the words are just the title repeated over and over. For example in Hug, on every page Bobo sees an animal friend getting a hug from its mommy and he says, "hug" repeatedly. Then he yells it and begins to cry until his Mommy yells, "Bobo" and comes and hugs him. The only words in the book are hug, Bobo and Mommy.



In Yes, Mommy tells Bobo it is time for different parts of the bedtime routine like a bath. Bobo says, "Yes" repeatedly during the bath, but when it is time for bed and Bobo says, "No" repeatedly. Then Mommy says "Bye-bye, Bobo," and Bobo's friends come and to play with him in the water. The lizard splashes Bobo and he says, "No." The lizard says, "Yes." Then they both say no when the elephant runs to the water. Then the three friends enjoy the water together saying yes. Soon Bobo becomes tired and falls asleep. The elephant carries him sleeping with his trunk to his bed in the trees where Mommy is waiting for them.



In Tall, Bobo is feeling small and climbs on a rock to be tall. Then his lizard friend comes and stands up on his hind legs and is taller than Bobo on the rock, so Bobo feels small again. The lizard has Bobo climb onto his shoulders so he can be tall. Then they find a lion cub who is taller so Bobo feels small. The lion cub gives Bobo a ride so he is tall. This continues throughout the book with different animals being taller until he gets on top of the giraffe. He begins to dance on the giraffe's horns and loses his balance. He yells, "Fall" and his Mommy comes running yelling his name and catching him. She carries him home hugging him and he is happy to feel small.

For these books we did a craft by making masks for Bobo and Mommy. For the pattern I went to the Jez Alborough website and went to his How to Draw section. How to draw Bobo is in the club members only section, but to join the club is free, so I joined. I used his steps to draw a pattern.

Dark Brown Pattern Pieces

We cut the pattern pieces out of cardstock scrapbook paper and cut the eyes out to make the masks. Then we colored the mouth, nose and eye brows. We glued them together and left them to dry. After they dried we punched holes and tied on stretchy string.

Light Pattern Pieces

Hazel then modeled both of them for me.

Bobo or Hazel's Mask

Mommy

Hazel loved wearing the masks, but I need to tighten the string on the Mommy mask. I also wanted to teach her more about chimpanzees, so we took some books out of the library.

I discovered that chimpanzees are endangered. I found this very sad especially since they have so many similarities to humans. I also found on Disneynature an educator's guide to go with their Chimpanzee Movie. I have requested the movie from the library, but have not gotten it yet. We had some fun exploring chimpanzees. I printed the lessons intended for the youngest grades in the educator's guide. It started with comparing chimpanzees to human beings. We looked at feet, hands and then took measurements and compared which was longer our legs or our arms. There was also a sheet to identify the emotions the chimpanzee in a picture was displaying on his face. 

They also gave us a map to color in where chimpanzees are found in the wild. Hazel mistakenly colored in an extra country, but we also noticed they are in Kenya which is our country this month for Around the World in 12 Dishes (post will be tomorrow), so it was a nice connection. We also read a short story and chose what animals and plants were in the chimpanzees habitat and finally we looked a food chain with the chimpanzee in it.

So that is our study of chimpanzees which was all inspired by the Bobo series of books. Every time I read one Hazel gets so excited and comments how she loves Bobo. Have you read a Jez Alborough book and done some activity or craft with it? Now is your turn to share. If you don't have one to share you can always check out all the great ideas others share here too.

Help with Bedtime!!

Disclosure: Penguin Random House Books gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.  As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

How is your child's bedtime routine and sleep? Does he or she get enough? Do you know how much is enough? These are questions I have been struggling with for a few months. No matter how much Hazel seemed to sleep she always complained about being tired. So finally I took her to the doctor who referred us to Boston's Children's Hospital Sleep Center. Hazel has many fears and her biggest one is of being alone, so often she was waking up in the night and calling one of us in or one of us was sleeping with her every night. Needless to say none of us were getting a good night's sleep. 

Welcome to The Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids!

I have joined these wonderful blogs to create the Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids!

Toddler Approved

Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Rainy Day Mum

Reading Confetti

Inspiration Laboratories

Play Dr. Mom

Mommy and Me Book Club

Kitchen Counter Chronicles

Two Big Two Little

Creative Connections for Kids

The Golden Gleam

Juggling with Kids

Taming the Goblin

Crafty Moms Share

Not Twiddle Twaddle

Ready Set Read 2 Me

Famiglia & Seoul

The Good Long Road

The Educator's Spin On It

Imagination Soup

3 Dinosaurs

Smile Play Learn

Royal Baloo

Being a Conscious Parent

Each of us will be posting about a book from the same author on the third Monday of the month and co-hosting a link party for you to share your own books and activities from this author. The authors we have picked are Mo Willems for June, Don and Audrey Wood for July and Kevin Henkes for August. We are hoping this will help to keep us all motivated to include reading in our busy summer plans and help keep the summer slide away from our kids. Will you join us in sharing?

We have had so much fun exploring Mo Willems books this month!! It was hard for us to choose one book to share with you. I must admit the only exposure we had to Mo Willems before this book club was a story time at a local museum, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. One of the few we went to they read Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. Then the kids did a neat craft. They gave them a black and white picture and had the kids paint on them similar to the pictures in the book. Well we re-read Knuffle Bunny as well as the two sequels to it. Hazel loved them all! We also did a quick picture similar to what we did at the museum. This time we used dot markers instead of paints because they were already out. I got the black and white picture here.

Ok, now onto the book we are suppose to be sharing about. We said we would pick one of the Piggie and Elephant series. Well, we have had a hard time picking just one. I think we have six out of the library and have loved all six of them. I do think Hazel's favorite right now is Elephants Cannot Dance, but she also loves We Are in a Book!

After I took this picture I realized the one about sharing ice cream was not there. Of course our homemade ice cream would be a perfect activity for this one, but since we already shared that activity we have another to share. We decided the fun think to do would be to make Piggie and Gerald (the elephant) masks so we could act out some of the books. To do this we started with painting two paper plates--one grey and one pink. Then I cut holes for the eyes. Oh, and we glued some pipe cleaners on as glasses for Gerald. Next we took one of Steve's old grey socks and put a small amount of stuffing in it for Gerald's trunk. I cut a slit in the plate and stuck the sock through it. Then Hazel glued one bump from an egg carton to be Piggie's snout. We added some glitter glue for her nostrils and for both of their mouths and glued on construction paper ears.  We used black for Gerald because we didn't have any grey on hand. Then Hazel really wanted them to have strings (I was hoping to glue them on tongue depressors and have them be the hold up type). Since Hazel was really insistent on wanting strings, I punched holes in them and tied stretchy string to them.

Then of course we tried them on. I put a larger string on Piggie so that mask fits me better and Gerald fits Hazel better, but of course we tried both on each of us.

Next we started acting out Elephants Cannot Dance. In this book, Piggie in her tutu wants to teach all of her friends how to dance. Gerald informs her that elephants cannot dance. She doesn't believe him so he shows her it in a book. Then she says that he can always try. Gerald then gets excited to try but of course does not have much success. He feels like a failure and gets sad. Then their other friends show up telling Piggie they are ready for their lessons. Piggie says she cannot teach them since her friend is so sad. The other friends say they don't want Piggie to teach them because they want to learn The Elephant. Then everyone tries to dance how Gerald danced and they all have fun.

Now Hazel loves to dance around the house or a store or any open space, so she loves this book. Next time we act this one out, I'm going to have her be Piggie and wear her tutu.

We will also be acting out some of the other books. Plus stay tuned this week for sharing more ideas to go with other Mo Willems books. I also hope you will visit all my other co-hosts and see what their creative ideas are for the book they chose. 

Now it is your turn to share a craft or activity for a Mo Willems book. I hope you are enjoying them as much as we are!!

This is where I share...

Back to School Picture Books

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

Are your kids back at school yet? Many of the schools around me start this week or next. Hazel goes back next Wednesday. Our summer is coming to an end and it feels like it just began. Such is the way of life. Today I am going to share three books for kids starting school or about school (and its lessons). Each child has his or her own difficulties and anxieties about school and these books seem to help kids with different ones. The first is for kids with allergies or who will be in a class/school with kids with allergies. It is Eppie the Elephant (Who Was Allergic to Peanuts) by Livingstone Crouse and illustrated by Steve Brown. 

More Mo Willems--Summer Virtual Book Club

We had so much fun reading Mo Willems books, that I have to say we were inspired to do several different crafts. It was hard to choose just one book. You may remember on Monday we shared our Piggie and Elephant masks, which of course can work with any of the Piggie and Elephant books. Hazel's favorites seems to be Elephants Cannot Dance and I Will Surprise My Friend.

Well we read Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. This story is about a naked mole rat who likes to wear clothes. The other naked mole rats tease him and are horrified at the idea of him wearing clothes. They go talk to the oldest and wisest naked mole rat who calls a meeting to announce that any of them should be allowed to wear clothes if they want and then it no longer matters whether they are clothed or not. 

Enlarged Naked Mole Rat

Well I thought of magnetic paper dolls with this story. (It may be since we were about to take a two-hour car ride to visit my parents and this is the perfect activity for it.) So I enlarged one of the naked mole rat pictures from the book, and I cut some clothes from scrapbook paper to fit the enlarged figure. (I hand sketched them on a paper on top of the enlarged picture and cut patterns.) I glued these cut clothes to the enlarged figure paper and copied it onto the magnetic page (which I got a Ocean State Job Lot for $1 or something for three different sheets).  Steve cut the magnets out for me since I was too busy trying to get ready for our trip. I picked up a metal pizza pan (they didn't have any baking pans) at the Dollar Tree for her to use this on.

This is something she can bring with her in the car or play with at home. Overall, a good activity!

Next month's author is Don and Audrey Wood. You can start reading their books and thinking of activities so you can share!! To see the list of blogs hosting The Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids go here.
 

Now it is your turn to share a craft or activity for a Mo Willems book. I hope you are enjoying them as much as we are!!

This is where I share...

The Welcome Home -- Book Review

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Today we are sharing the third picture book of the week and all of them were released yesterday! Today's book is a fun story about interesting pets and trying to find the right animal for you. It is The Welcome Home by Amy June Bates. It is recommended for ages 4 to 8 and one the Editor's Pick on Amazon in Best Books for ages 3 to 5.

Jigsaw Puzzles Perfect for Earth Day

 

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

It is hard to believe that it is Earth Day again. Sadly, even with Earth Day celebrations I feel like our planet is getting worse. We hear that we should recycle, but then we find out our recycling has ended up in the ocean still or is treated the same as regular trash. We know we should conserve gas, but people keep buying large vehicles. Electric vehicles are hot right now, but their production is not great for the Earth and to be honest we produce electricity using fossil fuels, so it is not changing things that much. My electrical engineer husband says that wind and solar will not be enough to fix our energy problems. No matter what we still have a lot of work to do to save our planet. Today I thought I would share two puzzles that are made me think of Earth Day. They each share a different ecosystem that is endangered. We will begin with Asian Rainforest Wildlife 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle by Hue Huynh.

Friendship, Readathon, Book Clubs and More

   
Today I thought I would share a bit about friendship. It is the theme of the Readathon 2012 Week 2. Did you know that 1256 readers have signed up so they have donated over 1256 meals to hungry kids via FoodforEducation.org? (If you want to join just click on the Readathon 2012 button above and for each reader that joins a meal is donated!) For more information and some links to different friendship crafts and activities go to MeMeTales.

Happy Family Times #40--Country Fair

Have you done something fun with your family this week? Kelly from Happy Whimsical Hearts and I would love to hear about it. We are collecting all the different activities we do so we can all be inspired to have more quality family time. Please share below. (Be sure to check out Kelly's post as well to read what her family did!)

The first week in October until Columbus Day is always the Topsfield Fair. Steve usually takes a day off during the week so we can take Hazel. We do not like dealing with the crowds on the weekends. This fair is a typical country fair. It has the animals, the 4-H club, as well as rides and food. It has been going on since 1818 though it was once a cattle show. They have been holding it in its existing location since 1910. (Source) The fairgrounds are large and are rented for different events throughout the year, but many organizations have their booths at the Topsfield Fair and they are permanent. In Greater Boston, it is one of the biggest and closest fairs around.

Having grown up in Connecticut I find it strange since the Big E is also in Massachusetts, but it is over an hour away from Boston. The Big E is the country fair of New England and New York. Each state has a pavilion and there are tractor pull competition, animal competitions, etc. However on the Boston radio stations, etc. you always hear talk about the Topsfield Fair. So this is where we head each autumn.

This year the theme for the Topsfield Fair was "It's All About the Food!" And it is a traditional fair with all the fair food--fried dough, kettle corn, etc. Plus all the fall traditional food--apple cider, apple pie, etc. We did not focus too much on food though. I bought us a bag of kettle corn to snack on and we had lunch. We were a little short on time since we went on Friday and Hazel has dance class in the early afternoon, but it was the only day Steve could get off this past week and it ended up being the nicest weather day of the week (since it rained just about every other day).

We walked in at the entrance at KiddieLand. Hazel of course wanted to go on the rides. We bought five tickets (one for me to go on the carousel with her and the rest for her). However they did not charge me on the carousel since she is so young, so she got to go on five rides. We started with the carousel. Then she went on the small train. Then she tried the flying bears and loved it! So she went on the flying elephants. Then with her last ticket she went on the pink sparkly jeep/car ride. She had a blast. Then we went over to the duck races which started in ten minutes, but we just bought some food and fed the ducks and took off. Like I said we knew our time was limited so we didn't want to wait for things.

Next we went to see some of the animals. We saw some alpaca (and they had beautiful yarn they were selling, but I resisted buying it) and some sheep. The ones I took the picture of had already been used for the shearing demonstration. Then we saw the cows. Later on we cut through the poultry, but it was really crowded so we didn't look too much. The pig barn had a long line so we did not wait. And we had specific things we knew we wanted to see so we did not stop at the bees or the rabbits.

Making international news this year was the largest pumpkin. It actually broke the world record. We went to check it out. Hazel wanted to know why there was a large rock in this special glass house. It was of course the pumpkin. I have to admit if it wasn't a world record breaker, we probably would have skipped this area. While there however I picked up some literature on how to grow giant pumpkins, a fact sheet on pumpkins and some coloring pages for Hazel. You can see them all above along with the information we got with the show times, advertisements and map.

We were rushing because this year Hazel had expressed interest in pony rides and she said she wanted to ride the elephant. I rode the elephant with her and Steve did his best to take some pictures. She rode the pony on her own and told me she did not want me to hold on to her. Last year she did not want to go near these animals, so this was a huge improvement.

After riding the animals we made a pit stop at the bathrooms and then got lunch. Besides a few bees trying to get the apple cider, lunch was enjoyable. Then we headed back to the car. Overall it was a wonderful fair day!

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!