5 Book-Inspired Picnics

One of the best things about warmer weather is picnics!  Here are 5 ideas for making your picnics book inspired!

1. Curious George

Any of the Curious George books would work well for this picnic, but our favorite Curious George book is Curious George Visits the Zoo.  George gets in a little trouble stealing some bananas from the zookeepers, but he saves the day when he uses them to rescue a little boy's balloon.

• Peanut butter and banana sandwiches
• Monkey munch (granola)
• Yellow Hat cheese slices
• Jungle juice (juice or flavored water)

2. The Rainbow Fish

The Rainbow Fish is the classic story about how the Rainbow Fish learns that being beautiful is not nearly as important as sharing with your friends.  (See more activities for The Rainbow Fish)

• Rainbow fruit kabobs
• Wise octopus string cheese
• Fish scales (crackers with a few wrapped in tin foil)
• Sea water (any drink with fizz)

3. The Lorax

The Lorax by Dr. Suess is a classic and has a great message about ecology.

• Lorax mustache sandwiches (pita or flatbread sandwiches)
• Trees (broccoli)
• Trufulla fruit (grapes)
• Trufulla fruit juice (juice) or fresh butterfly milk (milk)

4. The 3 Little Pigs

Who doesn't love The Three Little Pigs???

• Straw (Spaghetti salad-mix cold spaghetti with Italian dressing and fresh veggies)
• Sticks (Carrot & celery sticks)
• Bricks (Rice Krispie treats)
• Wolf teeth (Bugles)
• Pig punch (pink lemonade)

5. Hey, Little Ant

What's a picnic without ants?  This ant themed picnic would be perfect with any ant book like Hey, Little Ant, Ant and Grasshopper, or Two Bad Ants.

• Ants on a log (celery spread with peanut butter or cream cheese and sprinkled with raisins)
• Ants made from hard boiled eggs and straws
• Ant antennae (pretzel sticks)
• Bug juice (fruit juice)

What are your favorite picnic foods?

Check out our picnic craft too!

Linking to The Southern Institute, Delicate Construction, Mama Smiles, Tip Junkie, ABC and 123, Mom on Timeout, It's Playtime!, Kid's Co-op, Homeschooling on the Cheap, For the Kids Friday, Thrifty 101, Tatertots and Jello, Family Ever After, I Heart Nap Time, Come Together Kids

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

After having so much fun with our fly swatter painting last week, we read another book illustrated by Stephen Gammell calledThe Burger and the Hot Dog.  There are lots of funny food-related poems in this one!

Painting with water balloons was the perfect activity to replicate Gammell's splattery style.  I used a plastic medicine syringe to put paint in some water balloons.

Filled them up (HATE this part - should've gotten better balloons.)

Drew loved it.  Lainey's involvement was limited to squeezing a balloon and becoming irate when it popped in her hands. 

Stomping the balloons:

The color was very light, I should have added more paint and less water.  Either way, Drew wasn't much interested in the colors.  He just liked breaking the balloons.

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How've you been getting messy this week?  I'd love for you to link up.  I'll be sharing your ideas throughout the week on my facebook page and the Kid's Co-op Pinterest Board.


Linking to Outdoor Play Party

Easy Carrot Treats

One of the few veggies my kids will voluntarily eat is carrots (well, if you count my younger one sucking dip off them, that is), so I was excited when Toddler Approved announced their April book club selection was The Carrot Seed .

The Carrot Seed is a simple story about a little boy who plants a carrot seed.  In spite of everyone telling him that the seed won't grow, he takes good care of his plant and is eventually rewarded with a great big carrot.

The obvious activity to do with this book is to plant carrot seeds and we will, as soon as I remember to buy some!  In the meantime, we made some carrot treats.  (I was inspired by the Santa Hat Bugles at Cookies & Cups.)

To make these you need-

• Bugles
• Orange candy melts (we actually mixed red and yellow because that's what we had)
• Green licorice

Melt your candy and dip the Bugles in.  Choose ones that haven't been flattened and try not to let the chocolate get inside the Bugle.  Let them set.

Cut off a small piece of licorice.  Snip the ends to look like carrot greens.

Tuck the licorice into the Bugle and there you have it!

Here's my 3 year old's (he preferred a little more "green".)

Here's how far my 2 year old got: 

I realize that I have this a little backward- I should be making healthy food look fun and not making fun food look healthy, but you have to have a treat every now and then...

Be sure to check out all the cute ideas (and link up your own) at Toddler Approved!

Linking to Bear Rabbit Bear, Link It Up Thursday, Happy Hour Projects, I Heart Nap Time

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!)
1. Craft
I drew a simple fish shape and the kids used tin foil scales, glitter glue, googly eyes, and markers to decorate them.  They also used the bingo markers to make "bubbles".

2. Retelling
I attached some colored and tinfoil scales to clothespins and clipped them to my two little rainbow fish.  We read the book and then I encouraged them to trade scales.  (We have a way to go in the sharing department around here.)  If you were doing this with a larger group of children, you could designate one child as the rainbow fish and only give the shiny scales to that child.  As you read, the rainbow fish could give his or her shiny scales to the other fish.

3. Play
I cut four different colored fishes from construction paper and made one the rainbow fish by adding different colored scales.  Each got six matching scales except the rainbow fish, which got tinfoil scales. (I laminated everything but you wouldn't have to.)

I put a small piece of magnetic tape to the back of each scale and taped the fish to the refrigerator.  Now the kids can either match the scales to the fish or distribute the shiny scales to each of the fish.

Linking to Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime!, Kid's Co-op, 3 Boys and a Dog, Sun Scholars, Read Explore Learn, Crafty Moms Share, Link & Learn, Summer Reading Adventure