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My bloggy pal Hilary over at Raising Fairies and Knights started a fun new Monthly Crafting Book Club this year - a challenge to create activities to go along with some of the most beloved children's books.
We've really had some great fun so far this year, just take a look:
January - Animal Action Dice Game for the book Barnyard Dance
February - Cause & Effect Box for If You Give a Moose a Muffin
March - an alphabetical scavenger hunt for Dr. Seuss's ABC.
April - handwashing fun to go along with The Piggy in the Puddle
May - 5 Little Monkeys Fold 'Em Up for Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
June - pinecone princess & Cozy Sweater Warrior Paper Dolls for The Princess and the Pony
July - lantern craft for Curious George Goes Camping
August - mini backpacks & dress-a-doll fun for Froggy Goes to School
September - pumpkin fun for It's Pumpkin Day, Mouse!
October - monster shape-sort bags & other crafts for Have You Seen My Monster?
November - cozy paper quilt for Bear Stays Up for Christmas
Now it's December, and each blogger picked a winter-themed book for the month.
We chose Millions of Snowflakes:
This little rhyming book lets your child practice counting as the pages are turned. It's also one whose simplicity lets littlest learners go off to "read" it and search for the snowflakes on their own once you've shared it with them a time or two.
As soon as we settled on the book, it didn't take me long to know exactly what I wanted to do to go along with it.
Make paper snowflakes.
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| My snowflake |
Even though Gv's been a whiz with the scissors for some time now, I wasn't sure how she'd handle cutting through all those thick, folded layers.
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| Cut out designs from all around the edges |
And even before the cutting commenced, I wasn't exactly sure how well she'd be able to follow my folding directions, since I can remember some of my second-graders struggling with this very project, back when I was in the classroom.
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| Fold one edge of copy paper over to the other to make a triangle and cut off the extra rectangular strip. |
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| Then fold your triangle in half several times, always keeping the point with every fold on it stable (that's what keeps the snowflake held together) |
She loved making these - and I was shocked at how well she handled each step. But the best part of all was when we unfolded the first snowflakes we'd made.
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| Gv's snowflake - that she actually did all by herself! |
I wish I'd gotten a photo of her face, because her expression when she opened hers completely was priceless - it was like we'd performed magic!
I can already tell that this will be a popular independent activity for her, now that she knows how to do it!
I printed out a few of these snowflake pattern block templates.
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| Step 1: match up the shapes to the paper outlines. |
I used the black and white versions and once we fit all of our pattern block pieces onto the paper, we colored the sections in with the color that matched.
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| Step 2: Color shape spaces in the same color as the pattern blocks. |
Then, we cut them out and hung them on the wall:
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| Step 3: Cut out snowflakes and hang on wall. |
I'd also planned to have Gv create her own snowflake over blank paper, then trace the pieces and color them in, but we got so wrapped up in these, we ran out of day.
Finally, I'd discovered this neat gross motor game that went with our snowflake theme.
It sounded like great fun, but then I couldn't find our tape and so I scrapped the idea - but I'm actually thinking we might try it in the driveway using chalk, instead...
I love coming up with book connections like these, how about you? I'd love to hear! Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.
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Check out the other amazing crafts that my fellow bloggers came up with for this month.
Come back next month and see what crafts and activities we come up with for Ladybug Girl. Join our Facebook Group HERE to participate.
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