5 Book-Inspired Picnics

One of the best things about warmer weather is picnics!  Use one of these 5 ideas for making a book inspired picnic or create one of your own!

Painting with Water Balloons & Kid's Co-op Link Party 11

After having so much fun with our fly swatter painting last week, we were in the mood for some more outdoor art. Painting with water balloons was pretty easy to do and my son really liked this activity. The results weren't what I expected, but (as always) I think the process was more important than the product. 

3 Activities for Rainbow Fish

The Rainbow Fish is a classic.  In case you haven't read it, it's about the Rainbow Fish, the most beautiful fish in the ocean because of his shining silver scales.  He's lonely, though, and eventually learns that while sharing his scales with the other fish makes him less beautiful, it also makes him more happy.

 

We did three activities to go along with this book (hope you've got yourself some tin foil!)

5 Ways to I SPY

We love the I Spy Books and there are lots of ways to incorporate the idea into fun activities.  Here are just five of them:

Fly Swatter Painting & Kid's Co-op 10

I had this great idea for painting with fly swatters.  A roll of paper, some paint, and a few clean flyswatters and we'd be ready to create some outdoor art. Then I saw that other people with other blogs also had this very same great idea (Deborah from Teach Preschool did a great one at The Imagination Tree.)  The good news is that my kids don't read blogs, so it was new to them and they LOVED it.

Preschool Physics & Having a Ball with Books

I don't even know if the first part of that post title is accurate, but it sounds impressive, doesn't it?  I do not have a very scientific mind.  In fact, I taught sixth grade science for one year and the phrase my unfortunate students heard most often was, "I don't know, but I'll find out." (Then later I would ask one of the real science teachers.)  I do vaguely recall something about observation and hypotheses being important and so (I figured) if I want my children to be more scientifically thinking than I am, we better start observing and hypothesizing.

Easter Egg Balloons & Kid's Co-op Link Party 8

One of the Easter books we like is Happy Easter, Mouse! by Laura Numeroff who also wrote the If You Give... series.  Mouse dyes some Easter eggs and the next morning he finds different colored eggs hidden everywhere by the bunny.  This is a great book for practicing colors and counting.

10 Easy Ways to Make Bath Time More Fun for Kids

We have several bath books that Drew likes, but when it comes time for actually getting in the tub he can be extremely uncooperative.  Over the years, I've tried just about everything to make the tub a more appealing place.  Of course, we've bought bath toys and bathtub crayons and markers, but the novelty wears off quickly and who can afford to buy a new bath toy for every bath?

1. Homemade Bath Paint  I first saw this mixture of shaving cream and food coloring at Meet the Dubiens.

Feed the Very Hungry Caterpillar & Printable

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of our very favorite books.  The part that we all like best is the food.  Usually, we make play dough shapes to match the food, but I wanted to try something a little different this time.