Ready to change-up your book box ready for spring? Here are the most popular spring books for children, as chosen by the NurtureStore community.
Search Results for: Eric Carle
The Very Hungry Caterpillar craft ideas
Kicking off our celebration of Eric Carle’s birthday this week we’re sharing three The Very Hungry Caterpillar craft ideas.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is our favourite of Eric Carle’s books and is the first book I ever read to both my girls. It’s masterpiece of a children’s story, a joy to read and look at, and bursting with possibilities to use as a spring board for lots of crafting, exploring and learning.
Mr. Carle is celebrating his birthday this week and Kate at An Amazing Child blog is hosting a week of fun, linking up many early years bloggers who are sharing ideas for activities and crafts linked to Mr. Carle’s books. We’re sharing some caterpillar craft ideas today and some butterfly crafts tomorrow. On Thursday we have a post full of ideas you can use to explore The Very Hungry Caterpillar with links to the EYFS.
Eric Carle is famous for his signature style, combining colour and texture and The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a perfect book to use to inspire children to try some art and crafting. When creating with young children I always like to give them plenty of opportunity to explore materials their way. Even though these projects are all designed to result in a caterpillar there is plenty of scope for each child to experiment and add their own style to the creations. The caterpillar crafts are all very simple to follow, inviting even very young children to have a try. [Read more…]
Booktrust Booktime website and prize draw
Have you heard of Booktrust, the UK charity which aims to encourage a lifelong love of reading? Those of you with school age children may have come across their Booktime campaign which runs in partnership with Pearson and the Department for Education. Booktime gives every English reception class child free books to promote a love of stories and encourage family reading: B loved the copy of Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s Funnybones she was given.
They have a website which is available to everyone, with games and resources linked to lots of books and which is well worth a look. There are interactive online books read by the authors, including Eric Carle and Ed Vere, and tips for making the most of family reading. There are games you can play too, which include number and colour recognition skills, and recommendations for lots of children’s books whatever topic your kids are interested in.
Eric Carle Prize Draw
This autumn 680,000 copies of Slowly, Slowly, Slowly Said the Sloth by Eric Carle will be given free to all children starting in English reception classes. Booktime are also offering primary schools and libraries in England the chance to win an exclusive artist’s proof from the book, signed by Eric Carle. If you’d like to nominate your school or local library you can enter the competition until 31st October 2010 and you can find full details at the Booktrust website.
Nurturing a love of books
Hello everyone and welcome to Guest Post Day! Erica over at Littlemummy.com has been organising ‘blind dates’, linking up pairs of blogs to swap posts today. I am delighted to be paired up with Sandy from Baby Baby and to bring your her post, which even includes a story she has written just for us, which I hope you will enjoy reading with your children. (And please do pop over to Baby Baby to read the post I’ve written for her.) So, over to Sandy….
Hi, I’m Sandy. I write the blog Baby Baby. Baby Baby is my place to rant, rave, process my thoughts and attempt to entertain. One thing I don’t do is write about crafting. My two boys, Presley, 2 and Cash, 1, enjoy colouring at home and occasional sticking, but we tend to leave the messy stuff for Toddler Group.
When I found I was swapping blogs with NurtureStore for the day I felt inadequate. What on earth could I write about? Cathy has written a wonderful post for me called A Reluctant Parent’s Guide to Kids’ Craft. Yep, that was definitely written for me!
The name of this blog however, NurtureStore, inspired me. Here is my guest post.
Nurturing a Love of Books
It’s never too early to encourage a life-long love of books in your children.
One of my earliest memories is being read ‘Toby to the Rescue’ by my Mum. I was only two. Part way through the story the phone rang. Mum answered it and I carried on ‘reading’. I could remember every single word.
Another treasured memory is of my Dad making up stories about a family of hedgehogs at bathtime, then my Mum would read stories and sing to us as she tucked us up in bed.
I’ve always loved books and I still read every day, even if it’s just a couple of pages of a novel before I fall asleep.
Newborn babies will love being read to. They will be comforted by the sound of your voice. As they develop and their eyes begin to focus, babies will enjoy looking at the pictures in board books. Soon they will reach out to touch the images. This is where textured books are brilliant. They may annoy mum and dad, but books with animal sounds will usually raise a smile from your little one.
Encourage your baby to hold books. As they learn to turn the pages of a board book they are developing motor skills. Make books part of their everyday play, don’t just save them for bedtime.
The bedtime story is a wonderful part of childhood. You can start your baby’s bedtime routine at any age, the younger the better. To begin with you may think they’re not listening, they will grab the book and try to eat it. Do persevere. This is a wonderful opportunity to bond with your child – for both parents.
Soon your little one will be choosing books and you will accidentally on purpose rotate them so that you don’t have to read ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle for the thousandth time! Presley loves Julia Donaldson stories, particularly ‘Night Monkey, Day Monkey’ and, of course, ‘The Gruffalo’. Cash’s current favourites are ‘Elmer’ by David McKee and the Panda and Gander stories by Joyce Dunbar and Helen Craig.
Reading can be free, you just need to join a library. Our local library is tiny, but they have hundreds of children’s books. You can also ask for books as presents.
Happy reading!
***
One thing I’ve never done is write a children’s story. It’s always been something I’ve thought about, but didn’t have the inspiration – until now.
This week I was sat with a toddler on each knee, looking at the garden. We saw squirrels, birds and bees. I started to tell my boys that bees made honey. They looked at me like I was making it up. So I made this up instead.
Boris
Boris was a young bee.
Boris was a busy buzzy young bee.
He didn’t stop buzzing all day.
Boris spent all day flying from flower to flower.
He collected pollen from the flowers in little bags on his legs.
When the bags were full he flew back to his hive.
Boris lived in a hive with loads of other buzzy bees.
The buzzy bees made delicious honey in the hive.
One day Boris was buzzing around some beautiful yellow flowers.
He had collected a lot of pollen and it was nearly time to go back to the hive.
All of a sudden he heard Walter the wasp flying towards him.
Walter was a naughty wasp who liked to cause trouble.
Walter didn’t have an important job, like Boris.
Boris was scared of wasps and Walter was a big wasp.
Boris decided to fly home, but Walter chased him.
Walter laughed as he chased Boris, but Boris was too quick for him.
Boris buzzed away from Walter.
When he could no longer hear Walter, Boris stopped buzzing and rested on an orange flower.
Boris looked around. He didn’t know where he was. He hadn’t seen orange flowers before.
Boris was lost! He didn’t know what to do.
He had a little room in his bags so Boris collected some pollen from the orange flower.
It was getting dark, but Boris didn’t know the way home.
Then Boris heard buzzing and saw a big bee from his hive flying towards him.
‘There you are, Boris!’ said Billy, ‘I’ve been looking for you’.
Boris was very happy to see Billy and followed him back to the hive.
All the other buzzy bees were pleased to see Billy and Boris.
Boris turned his pollen into honey and it tasted wonderful.
After that all the buzzy bees from the hive collected pollen from orange flowers.
Boris was a beaming busy buzzy bee who decided he was no longer scared of wasps.
Thank you for having me, Cathy.
Normal service will be resumed next time!
Books about sunflowers for children
These books about sunflowers for children are a wonderful addition to our Sunflower School curriculum and great to read if you are growing sunflowers with your children.