Virtual Book Club- Owl Babies

The book for this week's Virtual Book Club was Owl Babies by Marin Waddell.

I had the pleasure of reading this book to a group of preschoolers in the holidays when I was running a craft area in the mall, and we did a cute owl activity using black, yellow, brown and orange paper, cotton wool, stick on stars and googly eyes.



The branch was stuck across the black paper, and I helped to cut beaks and feet from the orange paper. Big blobs of cotton wool became the owls, and we added the eyes to each baby owl.

The finishing touch was adding the stars and moon to the night sky, and I had some happy parents and preschoolers!

This book is such a great one to share with children who have separation anxiety or simply love reading about animals. Our version is a small board book, great for little ones to look through by themselves.

For more owl activities, check out this post!

Eric Carle inspired Mosaic Spider

My four year old has really enjoyed The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle, so we thought we would make our own busy spiders! I love the mosaic-like look of the spider in hues of blues and greens, so we set about creating our own blue and green spider.

My son started out by sticking some green and blue scraps of cardstock to an 8x8" piece of white cardstock.



We kept layering the blues and greens until he was happy with the pattern.



I then took a side plate and traced around it, and cut out a circle from the mosaic pieces. I also glued down any loose pieces.



We added some googly eyes, and Adam chose the colours of popsicle sticks for the spider's legs.



Our finished mosaic spider is complete!



This was such a great activity for hand-eye coordination as well as an understanding of what a mosaic is. Of course, there was also the ever important practice with glue and scissors!

Virtual Book Club For Kids (Margaret Wise Brown)

This month we are featuring Margaret Wise Brown for the Virtual Book Club!

Lucas has really been enjoying the story of The Runaway Bunny, and with Easter coming up I decided this would be the perfect time to do a bunny themed activity.



We made our own rabbit masks out of a few household items.



You will need:
Rabbit face template (we used a template from Usborne Activities: Easter Things to Make and Do)
Brown, white and pink cardstock
Pipe cleaner cut into four equal lengths
Elastic
Glue
Small hole punch


We started by gluing the ears onto the template.


Next up was placing the nose and whiskers.


Cut a slit in the middle of the template up to the nose. This will allow the mask to stretch and fit over your child's face a lot easier.


Place two small holes on either side of the mask, and thread some elastic through.


My boys were thrilled with their bunny masks!



They had to test out how well they could hop as bunnies, and so a lot of jumping around the dining room was in order- the masks brought out their inner rabbit! They both looked adorable and loved having their very own masks.

Join the Virtual Book Club for Kids Facebook Page to see more inspiration from Margaret Wise Brown and other book related activities!

Book Nook Roundup- our Favourites!

This month marks the end of my first year with Poppins Book Nook, a virtual book club for children of all age ranges. This experience has been amazing as it is not just about reading some fun books, but having experiences as a family.

Here is a roundup of each theme we have done throughout the year, as well as links to each individual post for further instructions.

Our first month was exploring the world around us, where we made a kiwi snack, a chicken craft and a tuatara!



Next up was Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which saw us take a trip on a steam train as a family.



Folktales was a very fun theme, and we learnt about the real reason the tide goes in and out after reading about taniwhas and the tide.



Winter was well and truly on out doorstep when we had The Great Outdoors theme, so we had a fun week of snow related activities. Our PVA glue snowmen were a huge hit!



The boys made their own parrots when we read about pirates, and we also had a pirate themed dinner.



Things got a bit more serious when I asked Lucas what he would like to be when he grew up. He thought for a while and decided either a policeman or a clown! We ended up looking into what policemen do and had fun creating our own police badge.



By far, the most popular theme for the boys during this round of The Poppins Book Nook was The Wild West. We don't have a desert in the south island of New Zealand, but the boys were fascinated by some photos I showed them of me in the Atacama desert. We also watched some movies about cowboys, made our own Wanted posters, practiced pasta threading and also made some puffy paint.



Beyond Our Planet got the boys thinking about the moon, planet and stars. We invented a new outdoors game, made swirling planets from milk, and explored the phases of the moon with Oreos, as well as making our own starry sky painting using a cheese grater!



The kitchen is a great place for cooking, but we also used this theme to explore science recipes using common kitchen items such as baking soda and vinegar. This was a messy theme but made both boys extremely excited as they love to bake and make things blow up.



The boys also got to do some science experiments involving movement and force for the Poppins Book Nook, which was right up their alley.



Our last theme for this round of the Poppins Book Nook was reading some poetry, and one of our books was all about different types of dogs. Noodle the Poodle was our favourite dog, and so we made our own poodles out of noodles!



I have loved being a part of this round of the Poppins Book Nook, and can't wait to be involved for the next installment!

The themes have just been released, so if this sounds like something you would be interested in participating in, simply come back on the last Monday of each month where there will be a linky provided for you to share your reading creations with the other co-hosts and bloggers.

Virtual Book Club For Kids (Dr Seuss)

Today's blog post is all about my favourite Dr Seuss book in conjunction with The Virtual Kids Book Club!

My boys love reading One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and all of the animals mentioned within the different pages.

Of course, one of the main characters is a fish, and so my 5 year old crated some handprint fish art. We painted some cardstock with blue paint, then put our hands into red paint and stamped them down to create two fish. Lucas thought it would be a good idea to add some seaweed and bubbles too!



We also had a yummy fish inspired lunch! I cut a circle and a shape out of bread, then layered with ham and cheese. I used a mini marshmallow and a raisin for the eye, and grapes for the mouth. Some cheese tubes became bubbles.



Be sure to visit the Virtual Kids Book Club Facebook page to see how others have been inspired by Dr Seuss.

Virtual Book Club For Kids (Eric Litwin)

We have discovered a new favourite book character- Pete The Cat, created by Eric Litwin.

My eldest is due to start school soon, and so Pete The Cat- Rocking in My School Shoes seemed like a good choice for bedtime reading.

Lucas quickly picked up the repetition and loved singing along with all of the activities. Pete went to school on the bus, played on the playground and visited the library, all the while rocking in his school shoes.

Adam is only two and so he was quite happy to sing along to an old favourite, jazzed up by Pete The Cat.

Since both of these books feature a yellow school bus, we had a great time creating our own buses. This was great for Lucas to focus on his creativity, and for Adam to talk about colours and shapes.

Adam started off by gluing the shapes down- he is very independent so I helped him with placement but he had to glue everything himself.



We talked about circles and squares, counted the wheels and windows, and also talked about the three colours.


Lucas was happy to glue and then decided his bus needed some extra colour, so out came the drawing items. Then Dad came home, and decided that Adam's bus also added some extra flair. The result...



It is so nice when the whole family can get involved in activities like this- I am not sure who had the most fun!

To see what other Eric Litwin activities have been going on, please head over to the Virtual Book Club for Kids Facebook page and check out the latest posts!

Virtual Book Club For Kids (Julia Donaldson)

This month's Virtual Book Club for Kids author was one most parents are very familiar with, Julia Donaldson. The author of the popular The Gruffalo series, her books are so much fun to read and enjoyed by kids of all ages.



The book we chose to focus on this month is called Jack and the FlumFlum Tree.This fun rhyming book chronicles the adventures of Jack, Rose and Stu as they sail to the island of Blowyernose to find the fruit of the FlumFlum tree.

We decided to make our own FlumFlum trees. Starting off with half a toilet roll, we painted it green with our homemade paint.



The boys then placed some dyed green spaghetti on some brown cardstock. To make the spaghetti green, I boiled it and then left it to sit in the pan with a little bit of white vinegar and food colouring for an hour, then spread it on a plate to dry.



We used cotton buds to dot purple on the tree for the FlumFlum fruit.



The boys were very happy with their finished FlumFlum trees!



We cannot wait to see how others are inspired by Julia Donaldson. Head over to the Facebook Page to see what activities there are!