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Welcome to The Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids!

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

Multicultural Monday: Book Clubs & Readathon Connections


As some of you know, we are participating in both the Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids (look for the link party a little later in our next post) and a Readathon.

As I was reading some Mo Willems books to Hazel the past few weeks to prepare for the Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids, I came across the Knuffle Bunny series. It took us awhile to get Knuffle Bunny Free (the third and final book in the series).  In this book, Trixie goes to Holland to visit her grandparents and loses her beloved knuffle bunny when he gets left on the airplane. When her father calls the airline to ask them to check the plane, he finds out the plane is already headed to China. This gives us an opportunity to look at the culture in two different countries for Multicultural Monday. Since I just got the book, I have not done any of these crafts but wanted to give some resources to you.
Holland:
--divided by country here is the link for Holland.
--coloring pages, worksheets, favorite characters and of course tulips and windmills
--post written by a guest blogger from Holland...much on art, culture and life as well as a felt board craft.
--written by a kid describing history and life in the Netherlands.

China:
--many different activities and craft ideas including coloring pages from animals to homes and holidays
--animals, fans, hats, drum, and much more
--a good list of crafts for all Asian with a strong showing on Chinese including a Chinese yo-yo
--divided by countries here is the link for China
--many for the Chinese New Year but more general the further you go down
--written from a kid's point of view describing life in China

While checking out MemeTales pre-Readathon I found some free books on their India series. Hazel and I have been enjoying reading some of them from the computer. (Memetales is no longer working.)

The first is about a girl who brings Stickfiggy to visit her grandparents in India and Stickfiggy learns about the country and culture. The second is a story about the wind, but uses the Indian word for wind, vayu to name it. This of course brings us a new country about which to learn.
India:
--written in a kid's point of view of life in India
--coloring pages, worksheets, crafts, animal crafts and more
--peacocks, henna and more
--Learn about India worksheets, maps, famous people and more!

Ok, this is my quick installment of Multicultural Monday. There will be another post later for the Summer Virtual Book Club including the link party. I hope you have been enjoying Mo Willems books as well so you can share with us!

Mermaid Treasure Box

Announcements:
Sharing Saturday is still open. Please come share your child oriented crafts and activities with us and check out all the amazing ideas others have shared!

Upcoming this next week are the kick offs to two reading events. MemeTales Readathon 2012 and Virtual Summer Book Club for Kids (join me on Monday to share your Mo Willems book crafts), and we are participating in both!! I hope you will join us in them.
My frame and picture in my beach themed master bedroom

While thinking about our shell frames and picking up a few more wooden frames to make more, we found a wooden box that would make a nice treasure box for Hazel. She loved the idea and I let her pick out a blueish paint for it. I used this paint on the box and our frames. I decided I wanted to use one of the previous frames for the picture of Hazel at the beach and still wanted to frame my favorite mermaid picture. Hazel also wanted to frame another mermaid picture (her second favorite) and we had a piece of wood we covered in sand to make a sign for Steve. We glued some shells on it to say "Relax." Steve liked it and wanted it for one of his spaces.
 I let Hazel glue the shells on her frame after I had added some sand to the bottom. She of course wanted to put on as many as she could. We put this one in her room as well as the first one she did.

Now onto the box. While she was at my mother-in-law's I painted it for her including the inside. Then we picked out a mermaid picture. We chose one from The Graphic Fairy. I decoupaged a sparkly scrapbook paper first to the top of the box and then the picture on top of it and put a few coats of Mod Podge onto it. Then I added some sand to the bottom of the sides of the box.
After all of this dried  we put some mermaid stickers on the sides including bubbles and then I sprayed the inside and out with an acrylic sealer. Next I hot glued some shells, stones, and sea glass onto the top and sides.
Top View
Front View
Hazel could not wait for it to dry so she could put some treasure into it.
Back View
Finished Box
We will be sharing this over at Taming The Goblin's Mermaid Project. Have you shared your mermaid crafts there yet?


Sharing Saturday #24

Wow, what amazing ideas were shared last week!! I loved them all. If you have not had a chance to check them out, please do so and share some comment love.

This week we had about a 20-way tie for the most clicked, so I'm just going to share a few of my favorites!!
In honor of Father's Day, one had to be a gift for Dad:
From East Coast Mommy: DIY Father's Day Gift


From Fit Kids Clubhouse: Preschool Science Matters

From Healthy Mama: Ice Sculpture

From Making Memories....One Fun Thing After Another: Bubble Art

From Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational: Hide & Seek Camouflage Game

If you were featured here please stop by here and grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog!

From Your Host:







 Now for This Week's Party
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow both hosts 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 button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.
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4. Optional: Like us on Facebook and Google+
Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest
All right everyone...This is a PARTY!! Have Fun!!

Play Dough Day 2 And Mixing Colors with Ice


nurturestore

This morning when we got up, Hazel asked to play with her play dough again (click here to see yesterday or day one of our play dough pledge play). I had put most of it in the refrigerator since I knew the Jello play dough had to be kept in it. I had left the cloud dough out. The oatmeal play dough was hard to work with after being in the refrigerator. It may be because I made it a bit dry since I didn't want it to be so sticky. First we played with the cloud dough. (I think I could have used more oil in this recipe.)