{Clara Caterpillar - Dramatic Play at Storytime}

Do you know the book Clara Caterpillar by Pamela Duncan Edwards?

We borrowed it from the library and Princess Pea loved it!

It's full of fun alliteration for 'C' sounds, and the story is about a 'plain' cabbage caterpillar

that ends up saving the day and becoming a hero.

As we were reading it one day, Princess Pea decided that she wanted to be Clara Caterpillar,

so...

she started acting out the story as I was reading it...

Here she is in her egg.

Here she's eating the cabbages.

Little Sister kindly helped her build a chrysalis by wrapping her in tissues.

Then she emerged from the chrysalis as a plain, white butterfly.

Daddy Pea had to step in to be the nasty crow that tries to eat the butterflies.

And finally, Clara Caterpillar saves the day and becomes the butterfly hero!

She had so much fun acting out the story! I think this may become a regular part of our story times!

Shared at: It's Playtime, I Can Teach My Child, The Educators' Spin On It's Love Books

{5-A-Day Books: Fall Break}

Our 5-A-Day Books plan definitely fell by the wayside a while back. But this week we are on Fall Break from school, so once again I get to spend all day long with my little peas for a whole week. So I thought I'd try to do 5-A-Day Books for this week at least, with no plans to try to keep it up after I go back next week - trying to set realistic expectations here!

Since Princess Pea does not have Fall Break at her preschool, I'm planning to do it just with Sweet Pea (now aged 19 months), and if Princess Pea is around for some of the readings, all the better.

So this week I've selected books with Sweet Pea in mind:

Run, Turkey, Run! by Diane Mayr is a fun Thanksgiving-themed book that we got out from the school library.

The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri is another Fall book that we got from the school library. It's a great discussion starter about the Autumn season and hibernation (for Princess Pea more than Sweet Pea). And there's a fun little squirrel to find in the background on each page. Both girls love it!

Night-Night, Little Pookie by Sandra Boynton is a favourite in our house and we've had it on our 5-A-Day list before I'm sure. But we haven't read it in a while, so I thought I'd throw it in there for some rhyming good fun.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. has also been on the list before (I think twice) but somehow always gets left by the wayside.

And finally, 'Nyuszi Almos' ('Sleepy Bunny') by Julia Donaldson for our Hungarian story of the week. I don't actually know this book at all in English, but anything by Julia Donaldson is brilliant. And it's a lift-the-flap book which Sweet Pea loves. Daddy will be in charge of reading this one :-)





Linking to: 5-A-Day Books

{5-A-Day Books Challenge: Week 6}

 
I'm a bit late in the day getting this posted, as I've got two sick peas, a long to-do list, a trip to the doctor, and a dreary rainy day here.

Anyway, our 5-A-Day Books for this week are:

(pssst - don't know about the 5-A-Day Books Challenge yet? Check it out over on the sidebar at the right.)

Toes, Ears, and Nose: A Lift the Flap Book by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by Karen Katz (a rhyming book of body parts and clothing items - I thought this would be good for Sweet Pea's developing vocabulary)

Shake My Sillies Out by Raffi, illustrated by David Allender (one from Raffi's Songs to Read collection, and of course rhyming)

I Love You Through and Through by Bernadette Rossett-Shustak, illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church (also rhyming, and also with lots of body parts vocab)

Smile, Baby, Smile by Moira Butterfield, illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw (another rhyming one - hmmm, they're all in rhyme this week)

and for last one I picked a poem instead of a book. There are two reasons for this: 1) Daddy Pea brought home a book of poetry (not this one, it was Shel Silverstien's Where The Sidewalk Ends) from work to read to Princess Pea and she's loving it, and 2) It's shorter to read than a book so hopefully we can get all 5 read every day!

So the poem is from the book The Ice Cream Store: Poems by Dennis Lee, illustrated by David McPhail, and the poem is titled The Dangerous Tale of the Dinosaurus Dishes (I'm really trying to introduce more dinosaur-related learning to my kids since I discovered that Princess Pea didn't know the word 'dinosaur' at age 3 1/2. Ooops!)


See what others are reading for the 5-A-Day Books Challenge this week here.

{Puppet Theatre}

I mentioned on the MPP facebook page a couple of weeks ago that Princess Pea and I were making a puppet theatre. I haven't posted about it yet because I wanted to wait until it was finished. Well, it's still not finished, but I know myself well enough to know that it may never be finished! So I'm just going to share it now; I'll tell you what I did and what I plan to do when/if I ever get around to it. We've already been using it, it's just missing a couple of finishing touches.

The theatre is made from an empty cookie box from IKEA. It is the kind that is a sturdy cardboard and has a clear cellophane window over the top. We just took off the cellophane (to eat the cookies, of course!), and noticed that the box made a perfect....theatre! (or TV, or shadow box...)

Anyway, since we'd been reading The Gruffalo a lot as part of our 5-A-Day Books Challenge, and Princess Pea now knows it pretty much by heart, I thought that would be a good 'play' to start with.

First, I covered the box with bits of scrapbook paper. I had some that sort of looks like bricks, so I used it on the back and sides. Then I used some that looks like rather grand wallpaper for the front (though I'm not crazy about the colour and may change it sometime). And one that looks like woodgrain for the bottom inside, to make wood flooring for the stage. In retrospect, I wish I had cut the papers a little bigger and folded the edges inside to hide the edges of the box, but oh well.

Next I got a piece of cardboard (I think it came from inside one of my husband's shirts), and cut it to just almost the size of the inside back wall of the box. Then we painted it to make our Gruffalo scene - the 'deep, dark wood'. I'm no painter, but it was pretty simple. Princess Pea helped for this part. I drew a curved line near the bottom and another one near the top, and then she painted a light brown patch in the middle at the bottom for the path, then a light blue patch in the middle at the top for the sky. Then she covered the rest of the cardboard with bright green, and I added dark brown tree trunks, dark green tree tops, and a couple of blackish-brown rocks. Finally, we added a couple speckles of yellow to make bushes with flowers on them.

When it dried, the scene fit perfectly into the theatre, and we can pop it in and out through the front of the box to change scenes for different stories. The paint caused the cardboard to curl up slightly, which actually worked out even better, as it creates more of a 3-D kind of scene, and also makes it easier to slip in and out of the box.

Meanwhile, Princess Pea started working on making puppets for each of the characters. We started using toilet paper tubes, which she painted in appropriate colours for each character. We used a toothpick to paint on the purple prickles all over the Gruffalo's back. But then I remembered that we had a Gruffalo activity book that I'd been holding onto for a rainy day. It had stickers inside of all the characters, so we abandoned the toilet paper rolls and instead just stuck the stickers on some cardstock, cut it out, and taped them onto popsicle sticks. Perfect! I put the sticks on from the top, so that it would be easier to hold them hanging down into the theatre on a tabletop, rather than up from the bottom. There were also a few scenery stickers, so we added them, too, and Princess Pea added one of her Easter bunny stickers so there'd also be a bunny in the woods.

I also want to make a curtain for the front out of red crepe paper (that's the part that isn't finished yet), and to cut a wide slot across the top to put the puppets in that way, as I think it would look more authentic.

But in the meantime, Princess Pea has been putting on Gruffalo puppet shows, and having so much fun with it! My sister even got to watch a Skype puppet show as her birthday present :-) I love this theatre and I'm so excited to make scenes and puppets for other stories she knows too!

(Sorry the pictures aren't super clear. They're from my phone.)


If you're looking for Gruffalo things to make and do, you might also be interested in these posts:

Gruffalo Crumble Recipe
Gruffalo Birthday Party
DIY Gruffalo Window Cling Stickers

PS - A new weekly 'Outdoor Play' linky party will be starting here on Friday! It is co-hosted by me, Kate at An Amazing Child, and Abbie at Greening Sam and Avery. Come by and link up your outdoor play posts! See you then!

This post is linked to:

Best Toys For Toddlers' High Paw

Childhood 101's We Play
Sun Scholars' For The Kids Friday
The Amazing Mess' Make and Do
The Educators' Spin On It's Love Books

{5-A-Day Book Challenge: Week 5}

Our 5-A-Day book challenge went better this week. (Not familiar with the challenge? Click here for more information.) We still didn't get through all 5 books every single day, but we did much better! I think it helped that I chose more 'baby' books with fewer words that we can get through faster. Both girls are really enjoying it, and Sweet Pea particularly is showing a huge interest in books since we started this challenge. Now any time I'm doing anything other than giving her my full attention, she comes over with a book and tosses it into my lap, saying, 'Boop! Boop!'

So, here are this week's 5-A-Day picks:


Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb - by Al Perkins, illustrated by Eric Gurney. This is the board book version and therefore abridged (did you know that they abridge the board book versions? I didn't until this week!). Cute rhythmic, rhyming silliness.

Moo, Baa, La La La! - by Sandra Boynton. We love her funny rhyming books!

Where Are You From, Little Goose? - by Marc Tetro. Particularly suitable for our kiddies who really don't know where they're from! This book is aimed primarily at Canadian kids I think (since the goose turns out to be from Canada in the end), but is cute for kids from anywhere (especially third-culture kids like ours) to start a discussion about nationality.

The Mole Sisters and the Busy Bee - by Roslyn Schwartz. We love The Mole Sisters series about two moles (sisters, obviously) who have exciting adventures with the help of their active imaginations. Sweet and simple text, gorgeous illustrations.

Green Eyes - by A. Burnbaum. We've had this book for a while but have never read it before. It appears to be about the seasons, as seen through the eyes of a playful kitten. It's marked as a Caldecott Honor Book. We'll see how we like it.

PS - A new weekly 'Outdoor Play' linky party will be starting here on Friday! It is co-hosted by me, Kate at An Amazing Child, and Abbie at Greening Sam and Avery. Come by and link up your outdoor play posts! See you then!

{5-A-Day Books Challenge: Week 4 and a Giveaway!}

Ok, I have a confession: We've been kind of sucking with the 5-A-Day Books Challenge! It's not that we're not enthusiastic, and it's not that we aren't reading lots of books. It's just that we have a hard time reading all 5 of the books in the 5-A-Day basket every single day. I think there a couple of reasons for this:

1. We read several other books during the course of a day too (especially Princess Pea's beloved series), and bedtime stories are usually something else.
2. Since Princess Pea is usually in preschool all day, it doesn't leave us much time around morning rushhour, dinner rushhour, outdoor playtime, bathtime, naptimes, group activities (music, folkdancing, ballet) and playdates.

I've been considering three solutions to this problem:

1. The first possibility is that I reduce the number of books from 5 a day to 3 a day.
2. The second possibility is that I pick 3 picture books to focus on for Princess Pea and 2 more baby books (one word a page sort of thing) for Sweet Pea (since she's not in that 2-6 year target age range for the challenge anyway).
3. The third possibility is that I still do 5 books for both of them, but make sure that 3 of them are REALLY short (just a few words per page).

When I threw out the first idea to Anna at The Imagination Tree (who created this challenge), I got a 'shocked' emoticon in return! LOL. So I think that will be my last resort! My plan, then, is to try option 3 first of all. If that doesn't work, I'll go to option 2. And if that doesn't work either, then I'll go to option 1.

I usually read one or two books over breakfast, which is a good start to the day. This week I'm including a bath book, so that will help too. So that means just two more to read between after-school time and bedtime. Hopefully that's do-able.

Wish me luck!

So here's this week's round-up of books:

Cuddle! by Beth Shoshan, illustrated by Jacqueline East. A cute rhyming story of a boy imagining what would happen if he cuddled various wild animals.

Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball by Vicki Churchill, illustrated by Charles Fuge. A rhyming story of all the things Little Wombat likes to do for fun.

Freddy the Frog written and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. A squeaky bathbook rhyming story of Freddy's life in the pond.

Strawberry Shortcake: The Berry Big Storm by Megan E. Bryant, illustrated by Margo Querol and Celestino Santanach. This is an 'All Aboard Reading: Station Stop 1' book for beginner readers. Princess Pea picked this one, as she's slightly obsessed with Strawberry Shortcake these days (stay tuned for her Strawberry Shortcake birthday party in another month or so!).

That's Not My Dinosaur by Fiona Watt, illustrated by Rachel Wells. An Usborne touchy-feely book, part of a series of very cute 'That's Not My....' books - our new purchase this weekend, which brings me to our giveaway!....

On Saturday I hosted a children's book party at my house. Sort of like a tupperware party, but with children's books instead. An Usborne independent representative came over with a wonderful selection of children's books. My friends came over and we chatted, ate treats (brownies, cookies, and sponge cake - mmmm), and browsed and bought books. It was a great morning, and at the end of it, Maria, the book rep, offered a book for a giveaway on MPP! Thanks Maria!

Usborne makes the most lovely books, both fiction and non-fiction. We had quite a few already, including some that I had from my own childhood! I am particularly in love with their 'Things To Make and Do' series. I have the Fairy Things to Make and Do and the Mermaid Things to Make and Do, but there are so many to choose from! So, we selected a book to give away from that series: Summer Things to Make and Do. Quite timely as the summer holidays will be here before we know it! This book contains 17 crafty ideas, along with over 100 stickers.


So, how to enter?


Well, firstly, I need to tell you that this giveaway is open to those with addresses here in Hungary only (sorry to everyone else! But yay for all you Hungarian residents who never get to enter most other online giveaways!). Here's what you do:

1. If you haven't already, become a 'follower' of Mama Pea Pod on Googe Friend Connect (over in the sidebar on the right). Being a follower there gets you one entry.
2. If you haven't already, 'like' MPP on facebook. Being a liker there gets you one entry.
3. Become a follower on Networked Blogs. That's another entry.
4. This one is a must for everyone to enter: Leave a comment below telling what you like to do with your little peas in the summertime. This must be done in addition to at least one of the above ways of following MPP.

Entries will close on May 28th. The winner will be selected not by any fancy-schmancy computer-generated randomising (is that a word?) program, but by my own little Princess Pea drawing a name from a good, old-fashioned hat (or more likely a box, we'll see what we can find). She'll love the power it gives her!

By the way, this is not an Usborne sponsored post, these are my true opinions about these books. Maria was kind enough to donate a book to giveaway, with no strings attached. She is just a lovely person! (She's also my quilting teacher! Multi-talented lady!) If you'd like to check out her website, please do: www.usborneonline.org/maria_laza .

So, that's it, good luck and sorry for such a long post today!

{5-A-Day Books Challenge: Week 3 & Happy Monday}

I'm sorry to report that our 5-A-Day Books Challenge this past week was rather abysmal! We were away on holidays and spent pretty much all of our time either outside walking (hard to read and walk at the same time) or in the car (I can't read in the car, it makes me carsick). I did manage to read Each Peach Pear Plum a few times in the car since I know it by heart and didn't have to look at the book, and The Itsy Bitsy Spider a couple of times since I could just sing the song instead of really reading. We read a couple of other books as bedtime stories, and made up our own stories as well, so we still got some literacy time in, but mostly we were too busy having outdoor fun - a pretty good excuse, yes? (I know, I know, we should be doing both!)

So, I think for this week we will probably do the same books again as last week. However, Princess Pea has requested to add her new book, Night Monkey, Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson (the same author as The Gruffalo, which we did in Week 1) and illustrated by Lucy Richards. So we're substituting that for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Night Monkey, Day Monkey is a story about two monkeys, one nocturnal and one not, who discover the differences in each other's surroundings. We've read it a couple of times already and it's led to new discussions about nocturnal animals, and comparing night and day. She's really interested in it, and was able to name a couple of other nocturnal animals (though she didn't know the word noctural before), and to explain why each monkey didn't know about the things they saw in the opposite time of day.

Anyway, we had a fabulous trip (which I will write about as soon as I have a chance - lots of great outdoor activities involved!), and I wanted to share something for Happy Monday. What makes me happy is SLOVENIA! I just can't get enough of that country! It's my new favourite place to visit (we went at Christmas this year and loved it so much we had to go back already at Easter!).

Check out this beautiful scenery!

And some views in winter, from our Christmastime visit:

Does it get any better than this?! Happy Monday! Oh, and Happy Easter, too!

{The 5-A-Day Book Challenge: Week 2}

Well, we completed our first week of the 5-A-Day book challenge. Overall it went quite well, though I admit there were a couple of days when we didn't get around to reading all 5 books. Sweet Pea, of course, doesn't have much of an attention span at 13 months, so she often crawls away mid-story to find something else to do, but she really enjoys and pays close attention when she wants to. I find that reading one or two stories over breakfast seems to really catch their attention, and makes for a happier start to the day.


So did it work? Well, without a doubt, Princess Pea can definitely 'read along' and retell the stories. She got quite annoyed if I read the bits she wanted to 'read'! On Sunday morning (the last day of our 5-A-Day week) she spontaneously brought out the book basket and sat down and 'read' all 5 stories to me all by herself! She's also really enthusiastic about the whole 5-A-Day Books idea, and is very careful (for once!) to always put those 5 books back in the 5-A-Day Books basket that we set aside for them. And she's already talking about remembering to pack our 5-A-Day Books when we go on holidays soon. Sweet Pea obviously can't retell stories yet, but she did enjoy them and got excited about them - pointing and making lots of noises, using the few words she knows and signs to tell us what was in the pictures. So, I'd say overall it was a successful first week!

One other thing I did was participate in a '5-A-Day Book Exchange' with a couple of friends. Since we all want to participate in this challenge, we thought it might be fun to get together to exchange books, chat about children's books and literacy, and just have a general get-together anyway. It was a great way to learn about different books, and we each left with a selection of new books to try for this coming week.


So, our books for Week 2 are:

The Itsy Bitsy Spider, as told and illustrated by Iza Trapani - the traditional finger rhyme, but with additional verses
One Hungry Monster: A Counting Book in Rhyme, by Susan Heyboer O'Keefe and illustrated by Lynn Munsinger
(both from my friend Deidre and completely new to my kids)
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by Bill Martin Jr. & John Archambault and illustrated by Lois Ehlert - an ever-popular alphabet story)
In a People House, by Dr. Seuss and illustrated by Roy McKie - a mouse and a bird find out what kinds of things people have in their houses; a great vocabulary builder
Each Peach Pear Plum, by Janet and Allan Ahlberg - the classic rhyming 'I spy' story featuring an array of traditional fairytale characters
(those last two are favourites from my own childhood!)


By the way, if you're wondering whose little baby that is up there in the picture, it's my Sweet Pea! I didn't happen to take any pictures of them reading this week, so I found an old picture on my computer to post instead. She sure looked much pudgier back then!






Check out the links in the sidebar to find more ideas of things to do with your little peas!

*This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

{The 5-A-Day Book Challenge - Week 1}

Photo by Maribeth

Anna over at The Imagination Tree has issued a Challenge! Are you up for it?

Her challenge is called the 5-A-Day Book Challenge. She is challenging you to pick 5 books and read all 5 of them to your kids every day for a week (or more). The next week, you pick 5 more. (Of course, this doesn't mean you should only read those 5 books in a day! Certainly Princess Pea would go nutty if she didn't get at least a couple of her beloved Anna es Peti stories in daily!) You can read more about the challenge here. Reading aloud and repetition are, of course, crucial for children's early literacy development. At least two of the books should be rhyming/rhythmic/repetition books, so children can quickly learn to 'join in' in telling and re-telling the story. By the end of the week, you should see your kids doing just that!

I suspect this will be a very popular challenge in the Pea household, as both girls love books, and love reading the same ones over and over and over. In fact, this will be a popular challenge for me, because it means I get to at least change up the books each week! The three of us picked the books together, and here are our picks for this week:

The Gruffalo - Written by Julia Donaldson, Illustrated by Axel Scheffler

A fun rhyming story of how a clever little mouse outsmarts all the animals who want to eat him for lunch!

The Eye Book - Written by Dr. Seuss, Illustrated by Joe Mathieu

In true Seuss style, a simple rhyming book that builds vocabulary, too.

Sandra Boynton's Pookie character is a favourite in our house, and this story is both sweet and funny.

Classic Dr. Seuss nonsense!

The Mole Sisters and the Fairy Ring - Written and Illustrated by Roslyn Schwartz

The Mole Sisters series is a sweet little series about two very imaginative moles and their imaginary adventures. Very simple text and lovely pastel illustrations.

I realised afterwards that we had ended up with two Dr. Seuss books, but ah well. There's plenty more opportunities to read more books!


So, let the challenge begin! (By the way, if you're interested in joining the challenge, pop on over to The Imagination Tree's 5-A-Day Book Challenge and leave a comment listing your 5 for the week!)

PS - I was impressed tonight as we were reading them, when Princess Pea right away pointed out which ones were rhyming books! She's a smart Pea, that one!

* This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.