Make a Splash with Ocean Books, Crafts, and Activities

Waves of Reading Fun

Have you signed up for the summer reading program at your local library? This year’s theme (at most public libraries) is Make a Splash – READ! We got signed up last week and we’ve been enjoying all the activities our local branch has to offer. We attend children’s story hour on a regular basis, but it’s exciting to see so many new families making the library a part of their summer vacation. Our library staff is really playing to the theme.


Sparkly Fish Decoration


This week’s story hour craft was a cute and easy fish to hang in your window or on your patio. Materials include: 2 CDs or DVDs (out of style or a little scratched are just fine), craft foam in the color of your choice, glue, thread or floss, and optional googly eyes or stickers.

• You’ll cut two triangular fins, fishy lips, a tail, and a center fin shaped like an eight from the craft foam.
• Glue the edges of the triangular fins, tail, and lips just inside the edge of the label side of the first CD.
• Glue second CD on top, label sides together.
• Push center fin through holes of CDs. Punch a small hole in top fin and thread hanger through.
•  Add eyes to CD with stick-ons or markers.

I don’t have the templates as all pieces were precut for us, but if it gives you fits, contact me and I’ll trace the pieces from B’s.

Vacation-Inspiring Learning Activity


Another fun feature this week was a presentation on tide pool life. The kids listened to a short presentation on the animals that inhabit different types of seashells while they passed around examples. Then they got to practice their matching, detective, and map skills as they looked for creatures matching their handout in gridded tide pool model boxes around the room. B was not really ready for the grid skills (the octopus is in B7), but we treated it like a game of Eye Spy: he looked at the pictures on the handout, pointed them out in the boxes, and I recorded. After looking at all the seashells and listening to the conch, I’m longing for the beach!

Oceans: Fiction and Non Fiction

We couldn’t enjoy these activities without taking home some ocean-themed books, and I decided the combination of the fish craft and the shell demonstration was a good bridge to the concepts of fiction and non-fiction. Preschool is the age to differentiate the cognitive concepts of fantasy and reality, and all it takes is an explicit mention of which stories are true and which are imaginary. We brought home Life in an Ocean, by Carol Lindeen, and Over in the Ocean, by Marianne Berkes. Life in an Ocean introduces several sea creatures with simple text and photo illustrations. It also includes a short glossary and additional ocean facts at the back. Over in the Ocean is a variation on the traditional Over in the Meadow poem, and you can count sea creatures and enjoy the rhythm and rhyme.

Appropriate for: Toddlers, Preschoolers

Linking up With:

Read Aloud Thursday

Feed Me Books Friday

Meme’s the Word (on Saturday)

Wishing Janna at The Adventure of Motherhood an enjoyable, well-deserved break as she takes July off from Feed Me Books Friday. Each week will be “guest-hosted” by some FMBF regulars, including ME! I’m excited to be part of one of my favorite memes. Hope you’ll come back here July 23 and link up!

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You Put Ketchup on What?

Kids' Eating Habits

For the most part, B has been a pretty adventuresome and often voracious eater. We count ourselves lucky and I still knock on wood. I know many other moms plagued by the picky habits or allergic limits of their children’s eating habits: only pasta and rice, chicken nuggets for every meal, scanning every label and quizzing every restaurant for peanuts, wheat, or eggs, avoidance of all things green, dipping all food in ranch dressing or ketchup. Sound familiar to anyone? T’s appetite has not been as adventuresome as B’s so far, but he’s super independent and interested in table food, so I’m hoping as his ability to chew and his dexterity improve, he’ll follow his brother on the path to broader dietary horizons.


A Book for Picky Eaters


Though we haven’t had to work hard to convince B to try new things, we had fun talking about the picky eating pigs in Mrs. Pig’s Bulk Buy, by Mary Rayner. I recommended it immediately to a couple friends who do have picky eaters, and I’m now sharing that recommendation with you. Read it with your child as a nudge toward trying new things or as a cautionary tale to avoid getting stuck in a food rut.



Ketchup Gets a Little Tiresome

The little piggy children in Mrs. Pig’s Bulk Buy are big fans of ketchup. They like it on EVERYTHING. Mrs. Pig gets a little frustrated when her children cover everything she works so hard to cook with ketchup. (Can we blame her?) So she comes up with a plan in the vein of that tried and true parental trick: reverse psychology. On her next shopping trip, she purchases 6 enormous jars of ketchup, and from the time she returns home, that is all she serves.
 As you can imagine, the piggies are excited at first, but it is not long before they are begging for something else to eat. Satisfied she has taught her piggies a lesson, Mrs. Pig goes back to cooking tasty meals for them – and they aren’t so eager to drench them in ketchup. The author attributes the rosy skin of pigs to Mrs. Pig’s ketchup experiment: “all piglets have been like that ever since,” and warns the reader against becoming too fond of ketchup or “who knows, you just might turn really bright pink yourselves.”


How do you deal with picky eaters or food ruts in your house?


Appropriate for preschoolers, primary grades.


Linking Up With:

What My Child is Reading This Week

Tackle it Tuesday

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You Can Take the Moon with You

Packing Up

Around our house, we take a lot of imaginary vacations. Usually our destinations are places we’ve visited before as a family, but sometimes B picks out places from books or movies. He received a small, hand-me-down, rolling suitcase from our neighbor a couple years ago, and he loves to pack it up for our imaginary trips and other pretend games. Sometimes it’s full of clothes, but other times it is full of books, play power tools, or plastic food storage containers pilfered from the kitchen cabinets. It always intrigues and amuses me to hear B’s rationale behind his packing choices.


Trip Preparation


We just returned from our first summer getaway, and have a couple more planned in the coming months. We’re opting for shorter, nearer, more affordable trips this year, because it allows us to stretch our enjoyment (and our dollar) over the whole summer. Whether you’re traveling across town or around the globe, you’ll enjoy reading See You Soon Moon in preparation for your trip. Packing up and leaving home can be hard at any age, but for the toddler or preschooler entrenched in their familiar routines, it can be a major cognitive challenge. A book like See You Soon Moon can help address questions and soothe discomfort.


A Travel Story for Your Sprout

Donna Conrad’s See You Soon Moon is told from the perspective of a little boy preparing for a trip to Grandma’s house. You and your child can read about his preparations: “I think I’ll take my blanket,” and trepidations: “I’ll miss you swings,” as well as the trip experience: “the car is jiggling me up and down.” From the car window, it appears to the little boy that the moon he bid goodbye to at home is instead following him up the hill, around the lake, and along the highway. The trip is uniquely illustrated by Don Carter with dimensional oil painting. Upon arrival at Grandma’s the little boy greets her and discovers the moon is there too – a comforting and familiar feeling in a less familiar place. B loves to go on trips, but we always bring along some familiar objects to make our stay more comfortable, and what easier way to feel connected to home than to remember that we’re all going to bed under the same moon? How do you make trips more comfortable for your little ones?


Appropriate for toddlers, preschoolers, primary grades.


I’m linking up with Feed Me Books Friday and Meme’s the Word (on Saturday).

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Read Your Way to a Happy Father’s Day

Daddy's special time with T and B

Celebrating with Books
If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably noticed I like to buy books to mark special occasions: vacations, birthdays, holidays. Father’s Day is no exception. My mom actually started the tradition in our family. The year my oldest was born, she gave me a “mommy” themed book for mother’s day, and my husband a “daddy” themed book for father’s day. I’ve enjoyed keeping it up, partly because I look forward to the collection we’ll be able to look back on and peruse, and partly because (I admit) it’s a great excuse to shop for books!

Daddy's Special Stack
My husband does most of the bedtime reading at our house, and it’s always a special treat to pull out the books that have extra daddy love, including Daddy Kisses and Daddy Hugs from our board book days. Daddy also loves to be silly, and we enjoyed my mom’s gift of My Father, the Dog for its daddy connection as well as its humor.


Funny and Loveable
My Father, the Dog, by Elizabeth Bluemle, is a light-hearted comparison of how the narrator’s father is like the family dog: he enjoys getting the newspaper, he likes to sleep on the couch, but best of all, and he cares for and protects his family, among other similarities. I love that it’s silly and fun to read, but still imparts the warm fuzzies at the end.


Blessed
My husband is an amazing father, and I value the unique skills and attitudes dads bring to parenting. We’ll be making dad a project this weekend and making some new memories. How will you honor dad?


Appropriate for toddlers, preschoolers, primary grades.


I’ll be linking up with Feed Me Books Friday and Meme’s the Word on Saturday.

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Who Does Your Child See in the Mirror?

You Are What You Wear…

I’ve written before about B’s love of dress-up and pretend play (Paper or Clothes, What Will You Wear?). As much as I love and encourage imaginative play, the laundry of multiple wardrobe changes gets a little tiresome. A friend compared his total of 5 outfit changes during his birthday party to hosting the Oscars!

 Start at the Top

The latest brilliant addition to our pretend props: a hat collection. B just received some gently used hats from my aunt (a preschool teacher) and now he can change personas in an instant – at the drop of a hat, even! (Couldn’t resist that one!) He’s enjoying being an imaginary policeman, pilot, engineer, sailor, mail carrier, and chef!

 Your Child is the Star in this Book


Seeing B taking on the different occupations reminded me of a book that hasn’t been off the shelf in a while, Mirror, Mirror, What Will I Be? By Chris Inns. We picked this up at a discount store, but it’s always entertaining. There is a circle cut out of the center of each page, through which you can see a mirror on the back page. As your child looks in the mirror, her face becomes part of each character, including a cowboy, a rock star, a diver, a superhero, and an astronaut. Each is gender neutral, and facing pages have a cute rhyme about the character’s actions. This is a board book, and B enjoyed it as a baby simply because of the mirror inside. In fact, we took it for entertainment on car trips several times. As he developed the cognitive ability for fantasy play and recognized the characters more, he worked harder and making his reflection fit just right in the space for the face, and he enjoys the rhymes much more now too. Mirror, Mirror What Will I Be? is a great jumping off point for conversations about occupations and inspiration for pretend play.
Appropriate for babies, toddlers, preschoolers.


What are your favorite pretend games?


I’m linking up with What My Child is Reading this Week – check out some other good reads and link yours up too!

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