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Activities to use with children’s books
Summer is here, which means the bugs are out! In my family, we are pretty prone to bug bites, so mosquitoes are a big part of our summer festivities. I decided to take some of the sting out of mosquito season by sharing a fun new read aloud. It’s a colorful new book about mosquitoes and ninjas which just may get kids moving! Try the fun activities together to get your mind off the pesky bugs outside.
I loved my birthday when I was growing up. I was always a shy kid, but if there was one day when I didn’t mind the attention, it was on my birthday. My parents made our birthdays special with lots of fun traditions that I plan to carry on with my daughter. We were allowed to pick a restaurant for dinner and choose the kind of cake we wanted to have at home. Every year we also took a birthday quiz that my mom saved for us, so we can now look back at how our answers changed over the years. (We may have whined about taking it some years, for which I am sorry Mom!). Since my daughter is starting to understand birthdays now, I decided it would be fun to start some of these birthday traditions with her this year.
Teaching your kids to brush their teeth can sometimes be a struggle. My daughter has gone through stages of loving to brush her teeth, and also hating it. At her first visit to the dentist, he told me that we would need to floss her bottom teeth because they were very close together. After a few failed attempts, she suddenly loves to floss them on her own! By making it a fun game, she took over the activity herself, and actually enjoys it. Using a fun story and imaginative characters is a great way to get kids interested in dental health. It can also help them to understand the importance of proper dental hygiene. I was thrilled when I found this awesome company which does just that. And we had a lot of fun creating these dental health activities for kids!
When we were younger, one of the books that my sister insisted our parents read over and over again was The Big Honey Hunt by Stan and Jan Berenstain. It 
was her favorite book, and to this day my parents can still recite some of it from memory. When I found the book at my parents house, I couldn’t wait to share it with my daughter. With summer fast approaching, it was the perfect opportunity to have some fun with bee activities!
Raising kids in a digital age comes with a whole new set of difficulties. From managing screen time to monitoring what kids have access to, parenting with screens can be a difficult balance. While screens may be part of our everyday lives, and access to them is more prevalent than ever before, it is important that we remember to put down the electronics and enjoy the hear and now. We all fall into the trap of viewing important events through our screens, since we want to capture every adorable second. Corine Dehghanpisheh’s book #BabyLove: My Toddler Life, reminds us to put down the phones and enjoy the moment!
Sometimes as adults, we see our kids being fearless and we forget that the world can be a big scary place for them. My daughter almost never shows fear, so when she gets scared and hides behind my knee, it sometimes takes me by surprise. It is our job as parents to help them develop the courage to take chances and try new things, while still allowing them to be afraid sometimes. (I will totally admit to still being afraid of spiders… and bats…). The book Free Rain is a great jumping off point to teach them about bravery and trying new things!
Being brave is something that we all struggle with from time to time. We tell kids to be brave whenever they encounter something new. It can be a hard thing for them to understand, but there are some great books to help them. The Brave Little Turtle by Gill McBarnet not only shows kids how to be brave, but brings an environmental issue to light which can inspire kids to take action! There are lots of ocean activities you can do to reinforce these messages with your kids.
My daughter has a fascination with caterpillars lately, so we have been reading Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar a lot. I was very excited when the Monthly Crafting Book Club chose this book as the theme for the month! We had a lot of fun doing projects based around this classic story! There are so many fun caterpillar activities that you can use to bring the book to life while teaching important skills.
Kids are full of imagination and creativity. Watch kids on Christmas morning. Boxes are almost as much fun as the toys that come in them! The great part about this creativity is that it can be harnessed to create some amazing things. The new book Old Tracks, New Tricks by Jessica Petersen gives kids a great opportunity to re-purpose old toys and create new ways to have fun. It also presents an opportunity to do a lot of fun train activities with your kids!
Fear is something that we all have to deal with in our lives. As parents and teachers, it is important for us to help kids learn to address their fears, in order to conquer them and live their lives more fully. So I was excited when we got the chance to check out this colorful children’s book that can help parents talk to kids about fear.
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