We started hosting a Mom & Me book club after discovering this Mommy & Me Book Club website. They
have such great ideas! We meet every other week for our book club and
we follow the same general pattern of circle-time, crafts, and
activities as they do on the website. For this weeks Mom & Me Book
club we picked the book, "Ten Apples Up On Top" by Theo. LeSieg AKA Dr. Seuss.
Gathering Activity:
For our gathering activity we did an apple picking activity. We printed out images of trees. We Got red colored craft pom poms. And using clothes pins, the kids got to "pick" the apples from the tree and place it in a "basket." (a cup) After they mastered the skill we handed out more colored pom poms and the kids got to continue picking apples and sort them by color into the different cups. We Got the idea from here. We got the tree image from here.
Circle Time:
During
circle time we sang, "here we are together at Mommy & Me" and we
sang through every child's name in attendance. Then we sang the "ABC's."
Next we counted from 1-10 and back again from 10-1. Then we sang to the tune of 10 little Indians, "one little two little three little apples." Then we read the
book, "10 Apples Up On Top." We ended
circle time by singing, "shake my sillies out" with the last line being,
"tip toe my sillies out" as we tip toed over to the table for a craft.
Craft:
For our craft we made Apples up on top posters. We pre-cut out 10 apples for each child with the numbers 1-10 on them. Gave each child a long strip of butcher paper that had a large oval at the bottom. They first colored in their face in the oval and then glued on the apples in order from 1-10. We got the idea from here.
Activity:
For our activity we pre-made 10 little apple shaped bean bags. We got the idea here. We let each child take a turn to see how many apples they could stack on top of their heads. And had a good time watching everyone try and see them fall.
Then after everyone had a turn we gave each child one apple bean bag to place on their heads. We went though the events in the book and let the children try to keep their apples up on top while doing the following things:
-Walking across the room
-Jump roping (hoping)
-tiptoe across the power line
-Pretending to skate around the room
-pretending to hop while drinking milk
Then we had them try to keep them up on top while avoiding us parents acting as the "Mop" the "Tennis Racket" and the "Birds"
Last, we couldn't resist laying out all the bean bag apples and letting the kids get their photos laying down underneath them as if they were on their heads.
Show & Tell:
Each
child also brings an item related to the book (if they can) for show
and tell. They stand up in front of everyone, say their name, show what
they brought and tell the group why is is related to the book or why it
is special to them.
Snack:
For
snacks we had all sorts of fun apple themed treats. We had two different apple desserts. We had apples and peanut butter. We had dried apples and apple jacks. We had milk, like they did in the book. We had also had angry bird crackers (like the angry birds in the book who keep trying to steal the apples.) We also had some veggies.
