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...

Mommy & Me Book Club: Are You My Mother?

For this weeks Mommy & me book club we decided to do the book: Are you my mother, by P.D. Eastman. (Not Dr. Suess like so many people think. Although they were friends.) Anyways, we use this awesome Mommy & Me book club website to get most of our ideas and then sort of mix in other things that we find online or come up with. Here is how it went.

Gathering Activity:
As people were arriving we did the gathering activity. We wanted each kid to have a bird to hold during the story so we made paper bird puppets. We used brown paper bags, stickers, cut out paper, feathers and little googly eyes to make the birds. We got this idea from this website and this website.

Ready for storytime!

Circle time:

During circle time we all sang the song, "Here we are together at Mommy & me." Then we did the ABC's and and counted from 1-10 and backwards from 10-1. Then we read the book, "Are You My Mother." During the story we had each kid hold their bird and they would try to do the things that the bird did in the story. (When the baby bird looked up, their birds looked up, when the baby bird looked down, their birds looked down, and so on.) We also had them say, "Are you my mother" with us as we read those parts in the book. 

Activity:

After we read the book we did a little sequencing activity that we found on this website. We had several cut out photos from the book and had the kids work together to try to put them in the right order of the book. We also finished up circle time with the song shake my sillies out. We ended with tip toe over to the table for the craft.

Craft:

For the craft we made snorts from the story. They had brads on them so they could move and put the bird back into the next like in the story. For this project we used some cut-out pieces that we found on this website. Then just colored and glued them onto another piece of construction paper. 

 Activity:
For another activity we did a sound matching game. Each kid got a film canister filled with something that made a particular sound. There were 2 of each sound. The kids took turns trying to find their "mothers." They would turn to another person and ask, "are you my mother?" Then shake their film canister as the other person shook theirs and try to determine if the sounds matched. Then if it didn't match they would move on to the next person and so on, until everyone had found their "mother." We got this idea from this website.

Show & Tell:

Each kid brings along something to show the group. We encourage everyone to bring something that goes with the book, but its not required. Most everyone ends up just bringing something they like. Each kid gets up in front of the group, tells their name, shows their object and tells the rest about why they like it. And if it has to do with the book, why it is like the book.

Snack & food:

For food we had pb&J sandwiches that were cut into little egg shapes and set on top of pretzels to look like eggs in nests. 

We also had "worms in dirt." Gummy worms in chocolate pudding with crushed oreos on top. 

We also had a fruit tray, some fruit snacks and hard boiled eggs.

Baby bib out of old t-shirt

So I had an old t-shirt I was going to get rid of because I don't wear it anymore. So I used some of the fabric from it and made my daughters bear a baby bib. I didn't have a pattern, I just traced around a baby bib I already had and went from there. I had to make it a lot smaller to fit a tiny bear though. I mostly wanted some practice so that when I went to make some bibs for babys as gifts I would know what I was doing. The stitching is not perfect, my sewing machine was doing weird things, but it turned out cute any how and my daughter was very excited.  This was last week and her bear has not taken it off since.