With all of our Virtual Book Club for Kids posts, we like to move, eat, draw and learn with our selected book. Check out all the fun we had with little blue and little yellow by Leo Lionni.
1. Move - This book provides lots of movement play inspiration and ideas -- perfect for a playdate where your little one and their best friend wear blue and yellow. Like the friends in the book, kids can play Hide-and-Seek, Ring-a-Ring-O'Roses, tag or even climb a mountain.
2. Eat - We made a yellow, green and blue fruit salad (pineapple, honeydew and blueberries). But the big hit, of course, were our little blue and little yellow cookies inspired by various pages of the book: the 1st page with little blue only, then (a few pages later) little blue and little yellow together, then the Ring-a-Ring-O'Roses page, and the colors running and plying after school followed by (skipping to the end) yellow and blue making green and then just green (the last page). We also had a cookie of green chasing orange, but Wild Thing ate that one straight away. When I asked him to get the candies for the cookies, I would ask him for the color that I needed in Spanish to practice our Spanish vocabulary. He thought our book-inspired cookie making activity was so much fun!
3. Draw - We did ice painting using blue and yellow ice cubes. The boys loved the sensory component. Of course,as the two colors merged their ice art experiments turned green.
4. Learn - We also did some primary color learning through fun water play - perfect for siblings or a play date. I gave Wild Thing a bottle with blue colored water and Caterpillar a bottle with yellow colored water with some bubbles mixed in. The boys would squirt their colored bubble water into a tray, and as they played together, of course, they got green. Beyond learning about colors, they are also learning the value of sharing, growing and playing together -- this is the wonderful message present in this book: that even though individuals can be quite different and unique from one another, together they can often create something cool and wonderful (like a new color).
(I had great photos of our ice art/play and our colored water play, but my laptop died recently and while I had backed up much of it, I had not backed up all of my photos, so you will just have to use your imaginations!)
BONUS LEARN + PLAY ACTIVITIES: a sensory bin and a Spanish language learning adventure in the making...
We have an evolving sensory bin, which we started at Christmas, then transformed for St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and (now) little blue and little yellow. Many of our green buttons and green "grass" (green dyed pasta) has been depleted by so much play (and a recent travel adventure in which we brought the bin along in a plastic baggie), but I had enough green buttons and such left to make it work. I removed most of the non-green items and added in some blue circles (milk caps) and yellow circles I cut out from yellow mini muffin liners.I also added some yellow and blue paper shreds that came in our Easter package from grandma. Wild Thing uses these items to retell much of the story (the shreds become the yellow and blue tears that little green cries). He also likes to pull out a blue circle, then a yellow circle. Then, he will stack them together and cover them with a large green button to represent their transformation. With Caterpillar, I use the bin to reinforce his colors and for shape learning. (Wild Thing is 3.5 and Caterpillar is almost 2).
Finally, together Wild Thing, Daddy and I are making a Spanish version of the book (an abbreviated version). It is helping Wild Thing and I learn new Spanish vocabulary words. I liked the idea of using this book since it builds upon our knowledge of the colors in Spanish, which Wild Thing now knows quite well. Plus, Wild Thing will be creating the art for the book. I think we will finish the book by the end of the week, and we will be sure to share it!
Are you a Leo Lionni fan? What is your favorite book of his? Or, do you have a favorite color mixing activity? I would love it if you shared it!
Shared at: The Children's Bookshelf
In this post, I am hoping/trying to make up for being so absentee. It started with Screen Free Week at the end of April and beginning of May, which was followed by a trip to Chicago for a week for a family get-together during which time my laptop went completely bonkers!! (I have had it for 6 years, but still...) My new one will arrive on Wednesday, and I am lucky enough to be able to use a work laptop that is currently not needed for any of our youth programs. In short, though, this leaves me 3 weeks behind with The Weekly Library Challenge! Yikes!! So, I am sharing way more than three library books the boys have been reading in order to make up for it. I am sharing 100 of our favorite transportation books, plus some great transportation play and learning ideas from The Kid's Co-Op last week. This means, that next week, I will share 4 library books that I have been reading to get caught up. Hoping I can do it.
For the transportation books, there are two authors in particular whose books we get at the library quite often: Leo Timmers and Byron Barton. Both have many great transportation books, such as: Vroom! Toot! and Who's Driving by Timmers and Planes, My Car, Boats, Trucks, Trains, and Machines at Work by Barton. The Timmers books are the ones we have been reading lately, and we are not the only ones who are Barton fans. Theresa of Capri+3 also loves Barton and shared this great post about Trucks. (With those 2 authors we already have 9 books shared). And Next Comes L also loves Barton. Another transportation book that is favorite or hers is Dragon in a Wagon by Jane Bell Moncure. (That makes 10)
Now to get specific: we love trains at our house, so let's get into all of the wonderful children's book that highlight trains: Freight Trains by Donald Crews (which is also great for color sorting activities). Carolyn of The Pleasantest Thing shares our love for this book. Of course, there is also The Little Engine That Could, a classic from Watty Piper, I'm Fast by Kate and Jim McMullen, Tootle by Gertrude Crampton, All Aboard the Dinotrain by Deb Lund, Trainstop by Barbara Lehman and Go Train Go! and Stop Train Stop!, which are both Thomas the Tank Engine Beginner Books. Jessica from Play-Trains is always sharing great train books and says that The Train to Glasgow is one of her favorite read-aloud train books. We shared many of these books and play, learning, snack time and other fun train ideas in our popular Things That Go Series - Trains Edition. (19 books and counting).
If you have a truck lover, we have got you covered there as well: The Little Blue Truck is loved by many (Stir the Wonder reminded me of this wonderful book), Trucks Roll, My Big Truck Book,You Can Name 100 Trucks, Diggers and Dumpers, Truck by Donald Crew, Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, and Snow Sounds are all books that my boys love. School Time Snippets recommends the classic Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (that makes 24). Of course, fire trucks get a mention all their own and our Ten for Tuesday post we did for Fire Prevention Week remains the most popular on my blog. In the post, we share 10 fire truck books. We also love Alphabet Rescue by Audrey Wood. Plus, we link to No Time for Flashcards who has a list of 20 wonderful firefighter books. (This brings us to 59 books -- I figured we need to speed this list up a bit...)
Now for water and air - boats and planes: T is for Tugboat, Dinosoaring and Dinosailing by Deb Lund The Little Airplane by Lois Lenski (whose books I love), Flight 1-2-3, Angela's Airplane, Airplane Flight, The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont, A Plane Goes Ka-Zoom, and I'm Here by Peter H. Reynolds. Rachel of Nate and Rachel recommends Richard Scarry's A Day At the Airport, which I remember from my own childhood. Plus, Fly High! and The Hallelujah Flight are great for sharing the history of flight with your kids, and Pragmatic Mom has a great list of the Best Books for Girls focused on Girls who Dare to Fly. (This brings us to 86 when I include her 14 books...almost there...)
No Things That Go book list would be complete without Cars and Buses! Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (of course) by Mo Willems, The Bus Stop by Janet Morgan Stoeke, School Bus (another fabulous Donald Crews book), Bus Stops by Taro Gomi, and Royal Baloo has some other great bus books and activities. These make 92, and we still have some more favorite car books to share: Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, another Richard Scarry classic, Cars (Little Golden Book edition), Meet the Cars (Disney/Pixar book that we recently got from the library that tells you about every car in the Cars franchise - Wild Thing loved it, but it wore me out!), and Go Dog Go! by P.D. Eastman make 96. We will round it out to well over 100 with 9 books about Things That Go in Space! Whew! Please say all of these book suggestions make up for 2 absentee weeks from Project 101: Weekly Library Challenge. Now for some transportation fun from The Kid's Co-Op.
These 10 activities caught my eye:
Plus, you will find lots of transportation activities through our Things That Go Series!
Shared this post at: The Children's Bookshelf
Now, enjoy The Kid's Co-op: Link Up and Play!
