Beatin' the Summer Slugs

Now that summer is about to begin it's hard to remember to make time for reading and for books. I've found some fun ideas that you might like to try this summer with your little bookbug. Here is the first one:

Reading Rockets: Has 10 weeks of Summer Reading Adventures for you to try. I really like this one because it includes fun ideas that incorporate summer activities that you may be doing and lots of outdoor activities as well. You can also adapt the ideas for younger or older kids. Each week has a theme, such as Celebrate Summer, Travel the world, Discover Recipes and more. I'm going to try to do some of these activities throughout the summer. I'll let you know how they go. Here is the site to read all about each week: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/391

Enemy Pie

Enemy Pie

Author: Derek Munson

Illustrator: Tara Calahan King

Summary: It was the start of a perfect of summer. I was on the best baseball team, dad had just built treehouse for me, and my sister was at camp for three weeks, but things changed when Jeremy Ross moved in next door to my best friend Stanley. I didn't like him and he became my one and only enemy. Dad knew all about this and he told me he had the perfect way to get rid of enemies.... enemy pie! All I had to do was to hang out with Jeremy for one whole day and my dad would take care of the pie. I thought this would be easy but I found out my dad's enemy pie worked out differently than I had imagined. This is a cute book about making friends and learning to get along with others. It has fun pictures and is cute. It does have more text per page so younger children will have a harder time listening. But I'm sure it is one that will help you make friends and have you baking up some enemy pie.

The buzzer rang, and Dad put on the oven mitts and pulled the pie out of the oven. It looked like plain, old pie. It looked good enough to eat! I was catching on. But still, I wasn't really sure how this Enemy Pie worked. What exactly did it do to enemies? Maybe it made thier hair fall out, or their breath stinky. Maybe it made bullies cry.

Ages: 5-9

Use to teach: Friendship

Last Minute Mom Classics

I've been meaning to put these on this week so I'll quickly put on my last mom classics and end it on Mother's Day. I've been pretty busy trying to get everything done for the second little book bug to come to our home. So I will just show the pictures and authors and let you try these out for yourselves, if you haven't already.

The Snowy Day

Ezra Jack Keats

Amelia Bedelia

Peggy Parish

Bedtime for Frances

Russell Hoban

The Little Red Hen

Paul Galdone

I Can Read Books: These are simple easy to read book for children and some of them are very silly but I find that in our house some of these are the most remembered!:)

Potato Bug Project

We finally completed our potato bug book project and it was a lot of fun. We used the book Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. Originally we were going to make finger puppets and then I thought why not make musical instruments and it was a hit! This was a fun project that kids of all ages can enjoy. Rose and I made drums, shakers, a rubber band box guitar and more. The great thing is that you can use alot of stuff you already have in your house. Old shoeboxes, food containers, and water bottles. We did buy a few things, like pom poms, feathers, and so on. But you can use paper, beads, crayons, rubber bands, just whatever you want. We never made our rainstick, musical water filled bottles or a few other instruments, but we had plenty. I suggest for little children you make some of the other instruments beforehand and then leave one for them to make by themselves. Rose liked playing and shaking the instruments much better than making them. I also was going to explain each instrument but I got my ideas mostly from family fun. Here is the address: http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/specialfeature/musical_instruments/

Have fun drumming on the drums with your hand, hand, fingers and thumb!

Hand Hand Fingers Thumb

Author Al Perkins

Illustrator: Eric Gurney

Summary: A silly story for all ages that will have you drumming your fingers, strumming your thumbs and continually singing "dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum" This is a simple yet entertaining story all about your fingers, hands and thumbs. It throws in a lot of monkeys and drums for a little extra spice and will have your little ones wiggling their fingers by the end. This is a great book to have in your collection.

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. One thumb, one thumb, drumming on a drum. Dum ditty, dum ditty, dum, dum dum!

Ages: 1 and up

Use to teach: Body Parts, Music, Mom Classics