children's books Archives - Page 5 of 7

Outer Space Books for Kids

July 11, 2019June 3, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

You may have noticed that we’ve been on a bit of an Outer Space theme. We’ve had a stack of space library books and favorites from our own collection out in the traffic of the living room for a few weeks now. These are our favorite Outer Space books for reference, fun, and space-themed activities. If you’ve got a space fan, rocket lover, or future astronaut on your hands, these are the books for you!

Best Outer Space Books for Kids:

On the Moon
by Anna Melbourne is a picture book that we have read probably 1,500 times. I’m sure you have books in your own personal library that are hits with the kids. They are the books that you read every night before bedtime for 6 months strait. This is one of those books for us. My husband was able to recite the 24 page book from heart…and he can still do so! This is a special book in our house! It’s got great illustrations and and facts that your preschooler and toddler will love.

Basher Basics: Space ExplorationThis book is for a little older kids, but we love it for it’s fun illustrations and information.

The Planets
by Gail Gibbons is great for kids with it’s big illustrations and interesting facts on each planet.

What Is the Moon Made Of?: And Other Questions Kids Have About Space (Kids’ Questions)
by Donna H. Bowman is such a cute book with lots of facts about space. This book ignites more questions and fun discussions. This is a must-read for space fans.

The Kids Book of the Night Sky
by Ann Love & Jane Drake is a wealth of information. We loved all of the activities in the book that extend concepts. Read the book and find out how to make a sky carousel, a sighting tube, and a pinhole eclipse view among other experiments.

The Planets in Our Solar System (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 2)
by Franklyn M. Branley has bright and engaging illustrations with lots of facts mixed into the text. We loved the instructions on how to make a solar system mobile at the end of the book.

Where Does the Moon Go? (Question of Science Book)
by Sidney Rosen answers questions that my kids are always asking. This is a fun book all about the moon.

If you’ve got a little space fan, be sure to check out our Outer Space theme learning and play activities for crafts, activities, snacks, movement, and sensory fun.

Follow our Outer Space Awesome Pinterest board here.

Follow Sugar Aunts’s board Outer Space Awesome on Pinterest.

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More Color Identification Game

February 23, 2023May 7, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Preschool Book Club is back again, this time with a craft activity and game based on the book, “I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!”. We’ve created a body part identification book activity for this book before, and were excited to read an play the book again! This time our activity addressed colors and body parts, and was it ever fun!

This is a creative art idea that you’ll want to explore. Use more of the creative painting ideas we have here on the website to identify body parts, too.

Painted birdhouses craft and Body Part, Color Identification Game based on the book, "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!"

Body Part Game and Craft

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I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!
by Karen Beaumont is a colorful and exciting book. A creative little boy paints first his house, walls, and ceiling and then when his mama objects to that, decides to paint his body. My kids LOVE the rhyming nature of this book. As we read the book (again and again!) they guessed the body parts that the little boy painted.

We decided to paint birdhouses like the boy paints his house. Out birdhouses became colorful works of art with colors mixing and spinning together. This was such a fun and engaging craft for the kids. We started with a wooden birdhouse that we received from www.craftprojectideas.com. Use acrylic paints (also from craftprojectideas!) to paint the birdhouses.

Painted birdhouses craft and Body Part, Color Identification Game based on the book, "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More!"

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More Book Activity

Once the paint dried, we created a game based on the book. We used colored craft sticks to create color identification and body part identification game. Write the names of body parts on the colored craft sticks.

Now play the game! To start, we had each child choose 5 colored craft sticks. They closed their eyes and to pick the colors. We read the book again and as we saw colors in the story or heard body parts, the kids could place their colored craft sticks into the birdhouses. This was such a fun way to combine art and a learning game.

After we played our I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More! game a feeeew times, we gave our colorful birdhouses to the birds! They are now decorating the trees around our house. we are waiting to see if any birds decide they want to live in a colorfully painted house!

Stop by to see how the other bloggers in the Preschool Book Club explored I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!:

Counting Game from Buggy and Buddy

Hand print Keepsake from Mama. Papa. Bubba.

Painted Doll House from Homegrown Friends

Body Painting from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Books About Recycling for Kids

June 14, 2021April 3, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

We love to make crafts and activities using recycled materials. Love it. So when we joined the natural parenting and earth month series at Alternative Learning, we knew we had to do something with recycled material crafts. Looking around the internet a bit, we were able to find the best craft idea books for creating kids’ crafts using recycled materials. These are some seriously fun looking books!

Recycled Materials Craft Books for Kids

kids crafts using recycled materials. Books about crafting with recycled materials.

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Recycled Crafts Box by Laura C. Martin
Use your to create castles, puppets, and more, using trash. These projects can be transformed into art projects and given as gifts using materials from the recycling bin!

The Cardboard Box Book by Roder Priddy
Use a cardboard box to create crafts, costumes, castles, circus, and more.

Green Crafts for Children by Emma Hardy
Kids can make their own toys and games, gifts and ornaments. This book uses all materials that you can find in recycling bins or nature.

Ecoart! by Lauri Winn Carlson
Children can express themselves and interact with nature using imaginative experiences. All the projects use recyclable, reusable, household materials and/or items found in nature.

Recycled Robots by Robert Malone
Use items in your house to make Robots!

Recycled Crafting for Kids by Kate Lilley
Quirky, colorful and fun projects for pre-school kids and their parents to make together.

Need more recycled materials books for kids? These are great for teaching kids about recycling:

Why Should I Recycle? by Jen Green

A teacher explains to his class about recycling as he takes them to a recycling plant to show them how it works, what sort of things they can recycle and to explain why it’s important.

Recycle!: A Handbook for Kids by Gail Gibbons
Kids will learn about the recycling process with a focus on 5 different types of recyclables.

The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling (Little Green Books) from Alison Inches
Learn about recycling from a new perspective as a plastic bottle journeys from the plant to the manufacturing line all the way to it’s new recycled life!

I Can Save the Earth! by Alison Inches
Educating kids on how to be more earth-friendly, this is a fun book.

Ducklings Sensory Play Kids Book

July 13, 2020April 2, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Books and activities are one of our favorite ways to play and explore books. We recently read Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. This is a book written in 1941 that was totally new to us. It quickly became a new favorite in our house! As we read the book about Mr and Mrs. Mallard’s search for their new home, we became very excited to explore the story through sensory play. We decided to create a sensory table based on Make Way for Ducklings and did we ever have fun!

Make Way for Ducklings book sensory play for kids

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Make Way for Ducklings Book and Sensory Play

We read Make Way for Ducklings a few times before we made this sensory table activity. It is such a fun book with a sweet story about a pair of mallards that are looking for a new home for their growing family. When the ducklings are born, the mama duck needs to get her large family through the busy streets of Boston to a beautiful and safe park. We decided to make a sensory play activity right on our Train Table. We use our train table almost everyday for creative play of some kind. This sensory play was perfect on the train table as we acted out the story. Three kids could reach, move, explore, and play as we re-told the story.

We used a few items for our sensory story play:

rubber ducks
wooden train tracks to enclose our sensory play area and use as roads for the busy streets of Boston.
blue waterbeads (Have you played with these yet? SO cool!)
cars
policeman figures
green shredded paper
clear glass gems
Boat

We pulled out the book and started reading, playing, and re-telling the story.

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard love the pond in Boston Public Gardens. It would be the perfect place to make a new home for their family! There is even a boat in the pond full of people who feed the ducks peanuts.

The mallards travel a little ways to make a nice, safe nest. Mrs. Mallard sits on her eggs until they hatch. The glass gems made perfect “eggs” and we were able to count them just like Mrs. Mallard does.

Then the eggs hatched and seven ducklings were born.

Mrs. Mallard taught the ducklings to swim and waddle in a line.

The ducklings followed Mrs. mallard back to the pond along the busy streets.

The policemen stopped traffic to allow the ducklings to cross.

And the Mallard family lived at the pond!

Exploring this book with sensory play was such a fun way to extend one of our newest (old)favorite books!

Make Way for Ducklings book sensory play activity. This is a fun way to re-tell a story through sensory play.

This post is part of a new series we’re joining all about Book Themed Play Dates! If you’ve ever thought of planning a play date based on a book, this is the series to follow to get great snacks, games, crafts, activities and more based on a great book each month.

Check out the bloggers below for fun activities for Make Way for Ducklings:

Duck Snack from Still Playing School

Preschool Math Game from Fun-A-Day

Ducklings Busy Bag from Craftulate

hands-on activities to explore social emotional development through children's books.

Love exploring books with hands-on play?

Grab our NEW book, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books! It’s 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development.

GET THE E-BOOK

Get the PRINT BOOK

Parts of a Book Activity

August 16, 2023March 26, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This parts of a book activity is a hands-on, multisensory learning activity for children. We loved adding a sensory motor component to learning the parts of a book while developing skills in visual motor and bilateral coordination areas of development.

Parts of a book activity

Big Sister is in first grade and one of the areas she had to learn in English Language Arts, is identifying parts of a book. We practiced identifying parts of a book with our very own Parts of a Book-Scope!

I love to create fun ways to practice testing areas and extend her homework a little with creative and playful learning.

She worked on book part identification terms earlier in the year (but I’m just getting around to sharing this with you!) but it was so much fun, that Big Sister still talks about our Parts of a Book-Scope!

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Parts of a Book Activity for Kids

Teaching kids parts of a book is part of English Language Arts in the primary school years. What makes this hands-on learning activity fun is that kids can get involved in the learning with motor skills.

Parts of a book include:

Title
Author
Illustrator
Spine
Cover/Jacket
Front cover/Back cover

Then, there are other parts, which are included inside the book:

Table of Contents
Title page
Index
Pictures/Illustrations
Diagrams
Glossary
Image descriptions
Graphs

Other parts of a book are included in the actual content of the book:

Characters
Events
Sequence
Setting

You can get as descriptive on these parts as you would like, depending on how detailed your parts of a book lesson plan is.

This activity is really so easy and a fun way to extend simple memorization of parts of a book. I grabbed a few styrofoam cups and wrote the parts of the book with -scope on each one. Cut out the bottom of the cups and you’ve got yourself parts-scopes.

parts of a book activity with telescopes made from cups

identify the title of a book in this parts of a book activity

I had Big Sister search and find the parts of the books, including Title, Author, Spine, as well as the parts within the book: Main Events, Characters, and Setting.

It was fun for her to read a book and as she found parts, she could use the event scopes to pinpoint the main parts.

One scope was all we used to locate the main parts of the outside of the books.

These Book Part-scopes were a huge hit in our house!

More First Grade activities you may like:

Adding with re-grouping

Skip Counting by 5s

Bottle Caps First Grade math

First grade comma activity

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Ish Book Activity Block Sculptures

September 6, 2024March 24, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This week, the Preschool Book Club brings you activities and crafts based on the book, Ish by Peter H. Reynolds. What a great message this book has! We loved reading Ish (again and again!) and came up with our take on the book and it’s encouragement of creative flow to build Ish-inspired block structures. Our block creations were full of creativity and tons of expression as the kids built and created stories and play.

Block sculptures based on the book Ish by Peter H. Reynolds

Block Structures and Creative Play inspired by the book, Ish:

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When we read Ish , by Peter H. Reynolds, we loved the feeling of being encouraged to TRY and to use our imagination. When Ramon creates “-ish” drawings, we loved his fun ideas! We decided to use something that we play with almost every day to create and imagine just like Ramon did. We pulled out our wooden blocks and started building “block-ish” sculptures!

Little Guy started with a trio of “airplane-ish” shapes that took off and flew around the dining room.

We used our imaginations to create creatures, steps, and more and started telling stories about our structures. I love to hear the stories my kids tell and it was fun to hear the way they created once I started adding “-ish” to the structures. They kept up with the -ish terms as they told their stories: The “dog-ish” guy went up the “steps-ish” area so he could be “taller-ish”.

We had SO much fun with this simple imagination building activity!

There were “ice cream-ish” treats…

…”Butterfly-ish” creatures…

…”present-ish” gifts…

…and a little block-ish tasting from the baby!

We ended up with a “tent-ish” neighborhood.

And a “truck-ish” vehicle…

…which lead us to a dining room full of “road-ish” streets. This became a whole afternoon of pretend play and creative thinking.

What can you create with a basket full of blocks and inspiration from Ish?

Be sure to stop by the other Preschool Book Club bloggers to see their crafts and activities based on Ish:

Artwork Candles from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Emotions Charades from Homegrown Friends

Crumbled Paper Art from Buggy and Buddy

Math Estimation Jars from Mama. Papa. Bubba. blog

Love exploring books with hands-on play?

GET THE E-BOOK

Get the PRINT BOOK

Pop-Up Cards and Crafts for Kids

July 11, 2019March 14, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

This week I’m excited to share a few fun Pop-Up crafts and cards ideas for kids to explore and create. Pop-up crafts are a great way to learn about basic movement mechanisms and levers through crafting. Mechanisms provide movement in books, cards, or crafts using a pop-up. We saw the History of Pop-Ups linked up by Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus on Share It Saturday this week and HAD to click through! What a cool resource of art and engineering combined with a bit of history. So, off we went to find more creative ways to learn and play with pop-up crafts and cards. This is the perfect time of year to do a little homemade card making with a pop-up craft; Easter, Mother’s Day, and Spring are the best days for a DIY card and the added touch of a pop-up!

These crafts and card ideas for pop-ups are a cute way to celebrate Mother's Day, Easter, and Spring with kid-made crafts and cards!

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POP-UP Cards and Crafts for Kids

Alphabet Pop-Up Craft from Royal Baloo at Life with Moore Babies.
Heart Pop-Up craft from Hodge Podge Craft.
Princess Tiara pop-up craft from Craftulate.
Chick Pop-Up craft from Red Ted Art
Pop-Up Tulip card from Totschooling. This is perfect for Easter or Mother’s Day!
Talk about the mechanisms and levers of pop-ups from Science Sparks.
Make a spring action pop-up from Buggy and Buddy.
Create simple cards with your kids like Tinkerlab.

Love pop-up cards and crafts? These are awesome books and toys to explore mechanisms and movements:

Awesome Pop-Up Books, Games, and activities for kids:

The Wide-Mouthed Frog (A Pop-Up Book)
Pop-Up Peekaboo: Things That Go
Pop-up Dinosaurs (Pop-Up book)
Pop-Up Magic Pop-Up Magic Castle Game
Pop-Up Paper Engineering art
Making Books That Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, Twist & Turn: Books for Kids to Make
Making Mini Books: Big Ideas for 30+ Little Projects
Goldilocks and the Three Bears Toy House and Storybook

Papercraft Pop-Up 3D Greeting Cards Bon Voyage

My Many Colored Days Color Feelings Calendar Craft

September 21, 2023March 3, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Today we bring you a Color Feelings Calendar craft based on Dr. Seuss’ book, “My Many Colored Days”. Celebrating Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss’ birthday is fun with this book and we decided to create a colorful reusable calendar based on the book and the many feelings we feel. We’ve made an activity based on a Dr. Seuss book before, so this craft was just right for us!

This activity could be paired with a feelings check in activity to support emotional and self-regulation in the classroom.

Make a reusable calendar based on Dr. Seuss book, My Many Colored Days. This one has many colors that show us our days can be filled with emotions (colors). Kids love to make this DIY calendar!

Reusable Calendar Craft

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My Many Colored Days is a fun book all about the colors we feel and how they are part of being “me”. Everyday is full of colors and so we decided to use those colors in our reusable calendar. We can see each day through the calendar and remember that we are always the same, no matter what color we feel.

We grabbed a few materials to create our calendar:

sheet protectors
a calendar to trace
permanent marker
assorted tissue paper

and our DIY decoupage

Use the blank calendar as a template to trace a calendar on the sheet protector with the marker.

Snip the tissue paper into squares.

Spread a thin layer of DIY decoupage on the back of the sheet protector. Lay the tissue paper squares all over the decoupage. Be sure all of the sheet protector is filled in with tissue paper. Add a second layer of decoupage over the tissue paper once finished.

Allow the tissue paper and glue to dry completely. Add a border using tape. This will keep the tissue paper attached at the edges and prevent peeling.

Big Sister is loving this reusable calendar. We’ve been using a dry erase marker to write on the calendar and a paper towel to erase over and over again.

This post is part of the Read and Play series on The Pleasantest Thing.

Looking for more Dr. Seuss books and activities? Try these:

Read “If I Ran the Circus ” and make a circus tent playdough mat
Read “Yertle the Turtle” and make some turtle crafts
Read “The Lorax” and play Lorax Small World from Kitchen Floor Crafts
Read “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish ” and play a One Fish Two Fish Sight Word Game
Read “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” and make a printable Seuss quote for your kids’ room

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More Book Craft

July 21, 2019February 23, 2015 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

It’s true that we are HUGE fans of activities and crafts based on children’s books. Today we’re sharing a craft inspired by a new book to us, “I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!” by Karen Beaumont. This pretend play kid made craft is big fun for imagination, language, and acting out the book while learning to name body parts. This would be a great craft to do at a play date, as it uses only a few items (easy set-up is bonus for a mom hosting a play date!) and these cup crafts are fun for acting out the story in a small group. We had a blast making our pretend play story parts and using them in retelling the book “I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!”

Use this Story telling craft for I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! to host a preschool play date book club with craft!

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I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More book craft

If you haven’t read the book, I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More!, this is definitely a book you will want to check out. It’s colors, rhyming text, and body part-learning story is not only fun and engaging, it’s funny! My kids loved reading this book over and over again, and guessing the body parts that the little boy would paint next based on the rhyme of the text. We loved the “Ya ain’t-a gonna paint no more!” that the mom in the story yells after her son paints the house. When the boy starts to paint his body part-by-part, we loved the bright colors and yelling out the next body part.

We had to make a painting body part craft to paint body parts!

Painting Craft Naming Body Parts

I started by drawing a picture of a boy on the outside of a clear plastic cup
using a black permanent marker. My three year old was a particularly hug fan of the book and is also loves anything involving paint. This craft was just right for her!

I showed her how to hold the cup with one hand and use a paintbrush to paint the body parts with paint. We used acrylic paint that we had on hand from an old craft kit, but these acrylic paints are ones that we love for their bright colors and semi-washability.