Mister Seahorse

How many of you love Eric Carle books? We just can’t get enough of his lovely stories! All of his books are beautifully illustrated with a unique style. One of our favorites in particular is Mister Seahorse. The pages are just absolutely beautiful and the story is just adorable! A fun characteristic that makes this book so neat is that there are clear “peek-a-boo” style pages throughout the whole book!

Here’s a fun fact: did you know that when a mama seahorse is ready to lay her eggs she actually lays them on the daddy’s belly!? The daddy seahorse has a special pouch that mama seahorse will plant her eggs in so that daddy seahorse can take special care of them in until they are ready to be born!

This is exactly what Mister Seahorse is all about. When Mama Seahorse is ready to lay her eggs, daddy seahorse will protect and keep them safe as he ventures off throughout the sea until they are born. During his venture he meets many other daddies who also care for their babies.

Mister Seahorse is definitely a great go to book when teaching  little ones about responsibility. This is a great way to show them that not only mommies have responsibilities caring for their young, but that also daddies do to.

We created our own colorful Seahorses to go along with this adorable book using this seahorse template:

Material:

• Seahorse Template
• Cardstock
• Crayons
• Watercolor paint
• Stickers/sequins
• Tissue paper
• Scissors/glue stick

All you need to do is print the template onto cardstock and then have your little ones color or paint it however they’d like (we colored our seahorse with crayons then used watercolor paint over it). Then decorate with stickers, sequins, tissue paper, whatever you prefer to use really.

These Seahorses turned out great when they were finished. This is another simple yet fun project to go along with another fabulous book!

My DAD Used to Be so Cool

Do you ever tell your kiddos exciting stories about your past and then they give you the response of “Wow you used to be so cool!”? Well today the boys and I read another great book by Keith Negley called MY DAD Used to Be so Cool. This story is about a boy who talks about how cool his dad used to be. The boy portrays his dad as being a normal guy who seems so serious now, but then tells a story about how his dad was once in a rock band and drove a motorcycle! His dad used to be so cool! So what made him give it all up?

This book is beautifully illustrated and has a great message for young readers! My boys really enjoyed this story and wanted to make their own picture of what their dad looks like. So I found this great paper doll template from http://www.craftycattery.com/

I printed the template on card stock and they then went to town decorating their daddy doll! They used crayons and then added stickers to represent the tattoos that their daddy has. This was a simple yet fun little project to go along with this story and didn’t take long at all!

The boys were so excited to show daddy what they had created, and he was absolutely thrilled when they told him it was a drawing of him! This project would also make a great present for fathers day as well!

Mousetronaut!

This week I am teaching the boys all about our solar system. So far this unit has been a hit, and I have come across so many great resources to help teach them all about space and our solar system!

 I can’t even begin to tell how many awesome non-fiction and fiction space/solar system books I have found! Yesterday while I was visiting our local library I came across two adorable fiction based children’s books geared toward space missions (well one is semi based on a true story). Mousetronaut and Mousetronaut Goes To Mars written by Mark Kelly and illustrated by C. F. Payne.

When NASA is getting ready to send an astronaut crew to go on a mission and they decide they want to send along some pretty special guests…MICE!

NASA has decided to send six special trained mice on this mission but which will they choose? There is one mouse in particular who is a lot small than the others, no one expects  him to get picked. Though is with big surprise the Shuttle Commander chose Meteor, the smaller mouse because of how hard that little guy has been working.

In both of these books Meteor makes a difference despite his size. There are obstacles in each story that Meteor helps solves to save the day! It doesn’t matter how big or how small you are, you can can make a difference and be a hero and that is exactly what these books will teach your children!

My boys loved these fun space books, so we decided to make our own mousetronauts to go along with the stories!

I found this adorable mouse template at

http://patternuniverse.com/files/downloads/mouse-pattern.pdf

We simply printed this template out on card-stock  and then colored it with crayons we also decorated it with star-shaped stickers. This is a simple yet fun project to go along with these books.

I hope you all enjoyed this post, as always thanks for stopping by ittybittyartcreations!

Color-Mixing 101

Yesterday the boys and I did a lesson on coloring mixing, which had been inspired by another blogger I follow raisingkinley.com

A few days ago while at the bookstore I spotted a cute book called White Rabbit’s Colors. I browsed through the book and thought how lovely is this! I knew it would be a big hit at our house because we have a pet bunny so the boys get excited anytime we read books that have bunnies in it.

When one little white bunnies gets curious and takes a plunge into three different tubs of paint, he soon discovers what happens after mixing your primary colors!  This book is a great way  to help your little ones discover what happens when you mix primary colors of red, yellow, and, blue together.

After we read the story we wanted to put color-mixing to the test! The boys still had so many questions about it and needed to see for themselves what really happens when you mix up the primary colors. So I thought how fun would it be to paint our own little white rabbits!

We printed plain rabbits on white card stock. Not only do these little rabbits go great with this story, but they also are great to use for Easter, which is right around the corner! Here is the template we used.

 

The boys had blast using their watercolor paints to see what happens when mixing primary colors together. These cute little bunnies turned out adorable! I hope you and you little ones will enjoy this fun learning activity.

As always thanks for stopping by

Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast

We have found our new favorite morning story time book! Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast is one of the most silly yet adorable breakfast story book ever!

This fun book is written by Josh Funk and Illustrated by Brendan Kearney. Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast is filled with silly rhymes and fun illustrations. This is the perfect book to read with your kiddos to get them up and going in the morning and is sure to give you and your kids the giggles!

For fun and FREE printable activities to go along with this book visit Author Josh Funk’s Website www.joshfunkbooks.com

Who’s team are you on?

Hooray For Hat!

Hooray For Hat! Is such a lovely book written and Illustrated by Brian Won. It is about one elephant who wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. Elephant is as grumpy as can be until after a knock at his door and a package waiting on his doorstep. Elephant opens it up and what it could it be? A collection of fancy hats!

Elephant is so excited and cannot wait to share his excitement with his friends, only they are in just of a bad mood as elephant had been. Elephant comes up with a great idea, he decides to share his hats with all of his friends. This way they can all be happy!

Hooray For Hat is a wonderful book to teach children how important sharing with others can  be and how it can help turn someone’s whole day around!

My boys and I just fell in love with this book! We wanted to join in on elephant’s excitement for hats, so we decided to make our own!

I went to Hobby Lobby and got some plain white baseball style hats for around $2.00 each and then I bought non-toxic crayola fabric markers for $5.99.  I also had fabric paint at home as well.

The boys had a blast letting their creativity shine and adding their own personal touch touch to these plain baseball hats!

This project was a lot of fun and inexpensive to!

ABC’s On Wheels!

I am always looking for fun ways to teach my children new things, especially when it comes to learning. My four year old is in preschool and has been learning the alphabet. One day while I was at the bookstore I came across a book called ABC’s on Wheels, written by Ramon Oliver’s. This is the perfect book to read to your little ones if you have car enthusiasts like I do running around at home. The author relates anything has to do with transportation to the alphabet. This makes learning your ABC’s so much more fun, not to mention the illustrations are pretty awesome to!

After reading such a fun book about the alphabet, I wanted to have the boys do a fun project to along with this book to incorporate the alphabet and vehicles. One day while shopping at Walmart I went down the lovely art and crafts aisle and came across these plain wooden cars that were only .97 cents! Score right? Anyways, I had been saving them for the right time. After reading ABC’s on Wheels it had inspired us to use them.

We painted the wooden cars, and after they dried we jazzed them up with some foam alphabet stickers. Our cars turned out pretty darn cool and this activity was the perfect way to get your little ones excited about learning the alphabet!