Painting Birdhouses With The Kids

Posted in activities for kids, books & book reviews, toys & games & gifts by Rosemary Lynn

painting birdhouses

My kids were SO excited about this project.

I hadn’t realized that picking up a couple of $1 wooden birdhouses at the store could make a day so very eventful.

It was pretty awesome.

Anyway, the reason we even went looking for birdhouses was because of this book that was given to us by a neighbor:

This First Discovery book about Birds was something I thought looked kind of fun, but I wasn’t sure how my kids would respond to it.

Surprisingly, it’s been requested over and over again at bedtime.

Even though it’s a learning book and not a story book, both my 4yo and 2yo enjoy reading it.

This is partially because they love all kinds of books where they get to discover things (the 4yo often requests a book that spells out the life cycle of butterflies) but also because of the fun way they allow kids to “discover” the facts about their subject matter.

This series of books includes transparent pages.

The transparent pages are printed with pictures on both sides and “hide” part of the page that’s underneath it. When you turn the page it reveals the hidden image.

My daughter calls these the “puzzle pages.”

And, from looking at the pictures of others in the series on the back cover, she’s already ardently requested that we get the ladybug book.

Thus, a ladybug and a dinosaur book are in a box on the way to my house right now. And I will be buying more in the future.

If you think your kids would love this kind of interactive learning, too, here are a few others in the series for you to view:

Do you own any of these books already? Which are your kids’ favorites? Your favorite?

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21May2014

Children’s Picture Books by David Wiesner {Book Reviews}

Posted in books & book reviews by Rosemary Lynn

Children's Picture Books by David Wiesner {a book review}

I recently sat down with my daughters and “read” some of David Wiesner’s books to them.

I put “read” in quotes because most of these books have little or no words.

But the pictures… well, the illustrations are breathtaking.

I was a little nervous when I first saw them. I was afraid maybe the illustrations were too intricate to hold a preschooler’s and a toddler’s attention.

I was wrong.

My 4-year-old would ask me to tell her the story, and then we’d flip through the book again and she’d tell me the story. My 2-year-old would point out all the little details as we read. They both requested the books over and over.

I’d borrowed as many as I could find from the local library, because I didn’t know yet if they were worth the investment to purchase them. But now I know my girls love them.

I narrowed down my daughters’ favorites to two: Flotsam and Sector 7.

Flotsam

Flotsam is a tale of a young boy who discovers an old camera while exploring the shore.

He digs it out of the sand and develops the film.

What he finds in the photos is, quite simply, amazing.

There are sea turtles with tiny cities growing on their shells. Sea horses watching tiny aliens play. And so very much more.

I enjoy this book at least as much, if not more, than my girls.

Here are some images from Flotsam:

Children's Picture Books by David Wiesner: Flotsam

Sector 7

Sector 7 is the story of a young boy visiting the Empire State Building on a school field trip.

While on the observation deck, he meets a curious character: a mischievous cloud.

They become fast friends and the cloud takes the boy to on a trip up into the sky. They visit Sector 7, the Cloud Dispatch Center, where clouds receive their instructions about how they should be shaped and where they are to go.

The boy happens to be an artist, and the clouds happen to love his sketches. The clouds decide to replicate these sketches, and mayhem ensues.

Here are some images from Sector 7:

Children's Picture Books by David Wiesner: Sector 7

While those two are our favorites, Wiesner has some other gems as well. Similar books include:

Tuesday

On Tuesday, strange things happen. This Tuesday, lilypad-riding frogs take to the skies, exploring the town by air.

Free Fall

In Free Fall, a young boy falls asleep with a book in his arms and visits magical, far-away lands and the knights, castles, and dragons within.

Hurricane

In Hurricane, two young brothers see a tree fall to the earth during a storm. It becomes their playground, representing everything from a pirate ship to an exotic jungle.

June 29, 1999

In June, 29, 1999, a young girl’s science project of vegetable seeds is launched into the atmosphere, has an extraterrestrial encounter, and we find out what happens when lima beans loom over Levittown and artichokes advance on Anchorage.

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15Feb2014

The Incredible Book Eating Boy {Book Review}

Posted in books & book reviews by Rosemary Lynn

We loved this book.

I loved the illustrations and the words and the story, and my daughters seemed to love all of it.

As soon as our first reading of it ended, my 3-year-old said, “Can we read it again?”

That’s always a good sign.

So, The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers instantly made our list of favorites.

It’s a fun and slightly absurd story of a young boy named Henry who accidentally discovers that he likes to eat books. All kinds of books. And the more he eats, the smarter he gets. Until he eats too many, and things begin to get a bit jumbled and confused. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like such a good idea to eat books anymore.

This makes Henry sad, until he realizes that – rather than eating them – he could read them instead! And he finds that he enjoys reading them even more than he enjoyed eating them. Although, when you read it yourself you’ll see that sometimes, quite by accident, Henry still takes a bite or two … as evidenced by the big chomp taken out of the back cover.

The gorgeous illustrations are so much fun. I find them to be delightful, as do my children, who scour the pages as I read. It’s definitely a book to be read by adults or older children, though, as it may be a bit too busy for emerging readers. But that’s the trade-off for the charm.

It’s recommended for kids 4 and up, but my 3-year-old loves it and my 20-month-old enjoys it as well. They are both engaged during the story. It spurs conversations and questions with my preschooler and my toddler likes to point out different objects, like the red books that Henry favors.

The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers