Mom & Me Book Club: "Green Eggs & Ham"

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, "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss. 

Gathering Activity:  

For our gathering activity we pulled out a bunch of play food and let the kids create and put together different meals and treats and things to eat. We had them let the grown-ups "try" their creations just like he does in the book. They were definitely silly creations and mixtures that they came up with. They did things like waffle, chocolate, lettuce, and cheese sandwiches. Great fun. 

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 read the book, "Green Eggs and Ham." After we finished the book we did a rhyming words matching game. See more about that in the next section. 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.

Activity:

For our activity we did a rhyming & matching game using the words from the book. We got the idea from Here. We used the printouts from 

Here for one side and cut out a circle for the other-side to make it look like a green egg. Then laminated them and let the kids take turns flipping the eggs over with a spatula. We all worked together to see if they rhymed or went together in the book. It took the kids a little while, which was great because it allowed for more turns all around. 

Craft:

For our craft we made Sam-I-AM place mats. We printed out a place setting for the kids to color that we got here. (or you could draw your own.) We gave them each pieces of cut up white and green paper that they could glue on to make greens eggs, and a cut out a piece of paper to represent ham as well. At the top of the page we had written ______ I Am. The kids filled in their name in the blank spot. Then we laminated each place mat so that the kids could take them home and use them. 

 Activity:

For another activity played "pin the egg on the plate." We got all the printables from here. We had the kids each take turns wearing a blindfold and place their egg on the plate or as close as they could get to it. 

Activity:

For our last activity we made our own gooey gunk. Recipe here. We dyed it green and filled easter eggs with it. then when book club day came, we passed them out and let the kids play. 

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/Lunch:

For snacks we had green deviled eggs and ham sandwiches. We also had green M & M's with pretzels. And in honer of Dr. Seuss, we had cat in the hat fruit kabobs.

Mom & Me Book Club: "A Rainbow of My Own"

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 the 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, "A Rainbow of My Own" by Don Freeman. 


Gathering Activity:  
For our gathering activity we had a large piece of butcher paper spread out across the table with the outline of a rainbow. All the kids worked together and colored in the different colors. After coloring we handed out a bunch of random objects for the kids to place in the right color spaces. 

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 "If you're happy and you know it" And replaced the words with, "If you're wearing red and you know it clap you're hands"...and so on through all the colors. Then we read the book, "A Rainbow of my own." After we finished the book we shone a flashlight through a glass of water to make a rainbow of our own for the kids to see. 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 an activity.

Activity:

For our activity we did the rainbow spaghetti noodle sensory activity that we saw on the Mommy & Me Book Club site, who got it from The Imagination Tree site. We dyed cooked spaghetti noodles all the different colors of the rainbow and let the kids play. Some kids made rainbows, others mixed and squished the noodles into piles and they all just had a blast playing with the noodles. 

Activity:

For another activity we let a child pick a color from the rainbow. Then they thought of something that is that color. Then we all acted out the item they picked. And repeat. (For example: Color red was picked. They thought of a red car. We all pretended to be cars going around the room. Another kid picked blue and thought of a shirt. We all pretended to iron a shirt.)

Craft:

For our craft we made fruit loop rainbows using fruit loops for the rainbow and cotton balls for the clouds.  

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/Lunch:

For our rainbow themed snacks we had a rainbow fruit tray and rainbow pancakes. For the pancakes we had powdered sugar and cool whip instead of syrup. (less messy.) The kids also ended up putting the fruit onto the pancakes which worked out really well. We also had rainbow gold fish, and other crackers and goodies. 

Mom & Me Book Club: "The Monster at the end of this Book"

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 the 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, "The Monster at the end of this Book" by Jon Stone.  

Gathering Activity:

Keeping in the theme with Monsters we decided to have the kids make their own creative little monsters out of play-doh. They each got craft sticks, goggly eyes and beads to use as arms eyes or teeth. I saw this idea on this website. It was really fun to see what things they came up with. 

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." (When we got to the letter of a child in the room they raised their hand and shouted their letter) Next we counted from 1-10 and back again from 10-1. Then we sang "If you're a Monster and you know it" (to the tune of if you are happy and you know it, but with monster things: growling, stomping...) Then we read the book, "The Monster at the end of this Book." 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 an activity.

Activity:

For our first activity we did a "don't turn the page" activity. We handed out several board books and let the children, using yarn, blocks and straws, attempt to make it so they could not turn the page. A few of the older kids actually accomplished this and everyone else just had a lot of fun knocking blocks onto the ground.

 

Activity:

For our next activity we played a version of "button button, who's got the button." Instead of a button we had a little toy monster that the kids passed around in a circle, while one kid left the circle and closed their eyes. We played "The Monster Mash" music as they passed the monster around and then paused the music. When the music stopped everyone put their hands behind their backs, including the person with the toy monster. Then the person who had their eyes closed got to come over and guess who had the monster and repeat. 

Craft: 

For a craft we made Grover monster faces. We found out how to make them at this website. We used paper plates as the base. We let the kids color a mouth with crayons and then they glued on shredded blue construction paper. Then glued on eyes and a nose on top of that. 

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/lunch:

We made these fun monster sandwiches that we found at this website. We choose to use the black olives however, knowing that most kids would not eat the green ones. 

 And we also had some "lumber" pretzels, "rope" twizzlers, and "bricks" graham crackers. And many other fruits and fun snacks as well.

Mom & Me Book Club: The Grouchy Ladybug

We host a Mom & Me book club for Mommies and kiddos ages 3-6. Younger siblings generally tag along, but do not participate in the craft activities and such. For this week at Mom & Me Book Club we decided on the book, "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle. We started hosting these book clubs after learning about this Mommy & Me Book Club website and we follow the general pattern of circle-time/crafts/activities, but this was the first time we picked our own book that was has not yet been done on the website. 

Gathering Activity:

Because the Grouchy Ladybug book goes through different times of the day, we decided to have the kids make their own paper plate clocks. We pre-cut out the numbers and different pieces for them to easily be able to glue on and and put together their own clocks. The kids used the clocks during the reading of the story and were able to move the hands to the times as were discussed in the book. 

Circle Time:

During circle time we all sang the song, "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 1-12 and back again from 12-1 (keeping in the theme with the clocks.) Then we read the book, "The Grouchy Ladybug." During the story we had the kids move the clocks to tell the time we were talking about in the book.  After we read through the book we did a sequencing activity where the kids all worked together to match clock times with the animals that the ladybug met. We got the photos for the sequencing activity on this website. Then we sang the song, "Ladybug" by Frank Leto. 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/Art Project:

For the craft we made construction paper ladybugs. We pre-cut the paper for the kids. For the body we had black circles and used slightly smaller red circles, cut in half for the wings. We used googly eyes and cut two small black strips of paper for the antennas. To make them curl you can wrap them around your finger or a pencil. The kids then got to use a black stamp pad with their fingers to put the dots on the ladybugs. 

Activities:

The first activity we did was "bug/animal freeze dancing." Every kid picked a bug or animal they wanted to pretend to be and we turned on ladybug themed music and let the kids crawl around or dance. Then paused the music for them to freeze and repeated. We only had time for one song for this activity and used, "Ladybug Picnic," but others that would have worked well include: ladybug ladybug, ugly bug ball, shoo fly, jitterbug, and rock around the clock.

For another activity we had a "Ladybug fight." We lined up the kids in two rows facing each other, (it ended up being more of a circle, but that works too) and we handed out little catapults that we had made previously. We found out how to make them at this website. Each kid got a catapult and a small pile of little craft pom poms or "Ladybugs" to fight each other with. The kids had a blast flinging them at each other. 

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/Food:

For snack we had several ladybug themed foods along with foods that were black and red, and all the mom's attending brought something to share as well. We made this adorable grouchy ladybug watermelon with blackberries for the spots. 

 We also had these ladybug apples. using black berries for the heads and raisins for the spots. We used peanut butter to keep them in place.

Ladybug cupcakes with mini oreo heads, mini chocolate chip spots, and twizzlers antenna. 

Mom & Me Book Club: Llama Llama Red Pajama

For our Mom & Me Book Club this week we decided on a fun favorite of Llama Llama Red pajama by Anna Dowdney. For this book we pretty much got all of our ideas from the Mommy & Me Book club website. (Lot's of great ideas there!) Here is how it went for us.

Gathering activity:

First off, we encouraged everyone, Kids and Mom's included, to come in their pajamas! Red, if they had some. For the gathering activity we set out lots of pillows and blankets for everyone to sit on and Mom's and kids read through all different kinds of bedtime stories while we waited for others to arrive and for about 5-10 minutes after that. 

Snack/Food:

Because this particular book club was later in the day then others, we decided to have our snack before we started circle time. For snack/lunch we all brought red food to share and one Mom made these really cute Llama heads out of crescent rolls that we dipped in red sauce. Oh and we also had red fruit punch and other fun snacks too.

Circle time:

During circle time we all sang the song, "Here we are together at Mommy & Me" and sang through every child's name in attendance. Next we read through the book, Llama Llama Red Pajama." During the reading, when the little llama jumped and shouted, we had the kids get up and jump and shout along with him and so on as the llama did other things throughout the book. 

After reading the book we did the song and finger play, "There were Ten in the bed." Then we sang the song "Shake my sillies out" and we did some actions from the book. (stomp my sillies out, pout my sillies out and so on.) We always end that song with "tip toe my sillies out," as we tiptoe over to the table for a craft activity.

Craft/ Art Project:

For our craft we made llama llama red pajama paper bag puppets. We printed out the llama heads and pajamas and cut them out ahead of time. Link here & here.  The kids got to glue the heads and pajamas on the bags and color. 

The kids and their finished llama puppets.

Activities: 

For one activity we played a game called the "wake up game." It was very simple. Basically all the kids lay down on pillows and blankets and pretend to be a sleep. Then the "Mama Llama" yells "Wake up baby llamas!" and all the kids wake up. That's it. But the kids thought it was SO fun. So we played it over and over and over. And we let the kids be the Mama Llama sometimes. 

Another activity we did was use a bed sheet to play with like a parachute. Each kid and mom held onto a piece of the sheet and we lifted it into the air, brought it back down, bounced balls on it, brought it down over the little kids so they could hide under it, lifted it back up and so on. Lots of fun. 

And here are a couple of llamas in their red pajamas...