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.