Book Review: Gingerbread Baby

This week’s featured book is Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. I love Jan Brett’s detailed and intricate illustrations. In contrast, her stories are typically fairly straightforward and simple. My kids have always been delighted with her books and tend to ask for them to be read again and again.

So, we need a few activities to go along with Gingerbread Baby. For the real moms among us, who want to do something fun, but feel a little pressed for time or energy this is the activity for you:

Storytime with Grandma
One of our grandmas doesn’t live very close, but she can still read stories to my kids. Jan Brett’s books are popular enough that grandma or grandpa or another special person could easily check this book out from the library. Then arrange a convenient time with Grandma and make a phone call. Put her on speaker phone, hand your child his copy of the book and let Grandma read the story to your child. You may need to remind Grandma to tell your child when to turn the page. Maybe Grandma is tech-savvy enough to make a recording of the book on a CD or as a sound file on the computer. You might be able to get a digital video recording or even do a teleconference on Skype. However you manage to connect across the miles, this is definitely a book worth sharing with a special family member, no matter what the distance.

More real mom activities can be found by visiting Jan Brett’s homepage. There you can can design and print your own Gingerbread Baby and your own Gingerbread Baby House. I should let you know that I had problems using this website on a Mac with both Safari and Firefox. It works if you’re on a PC with Internet Explorer.

For the super moms among us, you can find instructions, recipes and patterns for gingerbread houses online in many places. If you need to simplify this activity a little bit, you might consider using graham crackers to build the house.

Also, you might find that simply making gingerbread babies is plenty of fun for most kids. For this you don’t need to do the cutting the pattern and building the house stages. Arm yourself with a person-shaped cookie-cutter and move right on to the icing and candy decorating parts!

Tags: book reviews, cooking, reading

Book Review: Rainbow Fish

Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

First off, my apologies for posting so late today (tonight). Our kids are on a fall break, and we’ve been trying to spend some time as a family. And most unfortunately, I have some scheduling issues with my podcasting host. So here we finally are…

I will be stunned and shocked if you are not able to find this book at your library–both your town library and your school library. Rainbow Fish is extremely popular with teachers and parents. If you want to buy it, as usual you can add pennies to our tip jar and purchase through Amazon. But truly, you should find it with out any problem in a book order.

Real Mom Activities: I am suggesting a conversation with your kids about what it means to be a good friend and how important sharing is. Ask your kids what kinds of things they can do to share with others. If it works for your family, you might decide to go through your toy box and share some toys with those who are less fortunate. I try to do this with my kids at least twice a year for two reasons. First, I really do want them to learn how blessed they are and how often others do without. I think it is critical to teach children about service to others concrete examples and experiences. And second, it seems that every year my kids accumulate WAY more toys and stuff than they can possibly love. So, this is also a great to to get some of the clutter out of my house in a positive manner.

Super Mom Activities: As I mentioned this book is really popular with teachers. As a result, you can hardly do a search on Google without bumping into a teacher with a project for Rainbow Fish. And, frankly, if you ask me, all these activities are for super moms. You can truly pick just about any one and have a great activity. We’d love to see pictures of your art. Leave us a comment with a link to your Super Mom Moment.

Tags: art, book reviews, literacy, sensory activities

Book Review: How I Became a Pirate

How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long, illustrated by David Shannon

You can probably find this book easily at your library. I often see it in the book orders that come home from school as well. But if you’re wanting to add a few coins to the tip jar here at MomSchool.tv you can also buy it from Amazon.

We love reading this book as a family–especially the gorgeous, detailed, vibrant illustrations! There are tons of easy ways to extend the story into fun family activities. But since we don’t always want to turn the day into an International Event, here’s a few realistic ideas for family fun.

Real Mom Activities

1. Hot and Cold: Kids are fascinated by treasure hunting. You can have an easy treasure hunting game by hiding a simple treat somewhere and then saying “hot” as your kids get closer to it and “cold” when they move farther away. Younger preschoolers and older toddlers can figure out this game too, but they do need a little more help. Once my kids have found the “treasure,” they always love taking turns hiding another one and playing again.
2. Pirate Picnic: Spend an afternoon outside as pirates. Wear bandannas on your heads. Have pirate foods (no vegetables!). Eat with your hands and speak like pirates. If possible, do this at a park with a sand area where you can build sandcastles and bury treasure.

Super Mom Activities

1. Make a Treasure Map: This activity can become quite a project depending on your time and resources. DLTK Crafts has my favorite suggestions for making old, pirate-y treasure maps. I typically either use grocery bags or the cinnamon suggestion to make the paper brown. Also, I prefer to let my kids do their best drawing of our house and yard. This gives them excellent practice with conceptualizing and creating maps. My kids sometimes get frustrated by making the maps perfect representations and I have to kind of help them to realize that it doesn’t have to be exactly what our house or yard looks like. This ability usually starts to develop around kindergarten. Once they’ve created their maps, have them trade and see if they can discover each others’ treasures. You can add to the theme by having them wear bandannas and eye patches.
2. Time Capsule: This is an activity for older kids who are going to be able to handle the idea of letting the “treasure” stay buried for a while. You will need to explain the concept of a time capsule and then set them free to collect what they want to put in it. Having them write a letter to themselves in the future is always fun. An old ammunition container can work well for the time capsule, especially if the contents are placed in plastic bags. Be careful with your digging, if you decide to bury the time capsule.
3. Geocaching: If you have a hand-held GPS device, you may find high-tech treasure hunting lots of fun. It is a favorite pastime of our family. Dylan and Anya think it’s so much fun to find the treasure box and trade toys and trinkets. Wear pirate costumes and have fun together. This site does require a free registration to access the coordinates for caches.

Tags: book reviews, literacy, reading

Introducing Weekly Book Reviews

Weekly book reviews start this Friday.  If you’re interested in hearing a particular book reviewed or need activities for a specific book, leave a comment and let me know.  Otherwise, we’ll see you Friday!

Tags: book reviews, literacy, reading