5 Great summer reads for parents and educators; 5 fun summer reads for kids!

My originally planned post literally fell apart (A helpful hint for you: If you do a paper maché project out in the sunshine, remember to bring it in before the rain!), so instead I offer this list of great summer reads for all ages, to avoid the summer slide:

This post contains amazon affiliate links in case you have trouble getting these through your local library.
For the adults:

1. If you haven't read Richard Louv's amazing book about the need for the great outdoors, I urge you to get your hands on it this summer. It gives some startling statistics and thoroughly researched information, as well as suggestions on how to make time outdoors happen.




2.If you're like most people, you spent at least a portion of your summer trying to get things organized in the hopes of making your fall more streamlined. Julie Morgenstern's classic book has some great pointers for all aspects of your life including offices (and by extension, classrooms).



3.This one is on my own summer reading list. It touches on everything from organizing the classroom to discipline issues to portfolios. Looks great!



4.There are mixed opinions about STEM teaching (boy, is this one a touchy subject, no matter which side of the debate you're on!), but I've added this book to my reading list because I'm intrigued to see how one could tie arts in with daily STEM instruction.



5.Because at least one book you read this summer should be just for pleasure, here's one of my favourites from the great Barbara Kingsolver!


For kids:


1.Alligator Pie is a compilation of very funny and strange poems by Dennis Lee that stick in your brain like glue! A hit with every child I have ever read it to, and my adult child can still recite every one by heart.


2.Summer is a great time to read the classics! Treasure Island leads to all sorts of imaginary play and keeps kids in every age range enthralled.



3.Get them hooked on mythology! Start with a beautifully illustrated book of Greek Myths and then let them loose at the library to find myths from every culture.


4.The Boxcar Children stories have appealed to kids since they were written many years ago. Gentle adventures, main characters (children) who show courage and intelligence, and some really fun stories!


5.Why not take Winnie The Pooh to the park with your little ones (along with a picnic, of course!) and lie under a tree together to read? Who knows, maybe they'll even nap.

Book and Art: The Rainbow Fish

We borrowed The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister last week, and just fell in love with it! Naturally, we had to come up with a craft to go along with such a wonderful story. This time, I asked the children what they thought would be fun to do and clay got a unanimous vote.

There are amazon affiliate links in this post in case you want to find something that is mentioned.

 

I used the air-drying clay from the local dollar store, and we rolled it out under wax paper to avoid sticking. The kids did a great job with this, and only needed a little help getting the rolling started. (Excuse the blur, but they were pushing so hard that I couldn't get a clear shot!)

I used a coloring page as a template and the kids lightly traced around the outside and then cut away the extra clay. Then they drew in freehand the basic lines of the fish. I did help the smallest member of our tribe, age 2.

After it dried, which took about a day, I put out a few colous of paint (including silver and gold) and they painted their fish. I think the end results speak for themselves.

Extend the activity:

-My Rainbow Fish Pinterest Board
-Put together a Story Sack using this great set of Rainbow Fish Story Resources from Twinkl
-Have the children re-tell the story using these great free printable Rainbow Fish visual aids from Sparklebox

-Watch The Rainbow Fish read by Ernest Borgnine
-Rainbow Fish flannel board
-Rainbow Fish math board game to download free from Communication 4 All
-Rainbow Fish memory game 

-Erin, The Usual Mayhem

Book and Art: The Hoppameleon by Paul Geraghty

Recently, I was browsing through the shelves at our local library when I came across this great book.

(note: the image below is an amazon link in case you want to find the book)

 

It opens in a "sleepy, slurpy swamp" as a strange creature emerges and goes in search of a friend like him. He meets many creatures along the way, each of whom points out that he must be like them because of a trait they share. He agrees with the logic and adds their name, until at the end he is a "babylizzyparroturtlehoppameleon" who finds a friend just like him.

Besides the funny story, which had the kids giggling all the way through, the illustrations are just fantastic! We returned to look at them time and time again, and finally we decided that we had to try to capture the feel of one picture in particular.  We loved the shadowed plants and creatures in front of the sunset.

To make this, we first mixed yellow, red, and some pink together in different combinations to capture the glowing colours of sunset. We started with yellow along one side and then moved across, deepening the colour as we went.

Next, we added a little white to our leftover yellow paint and added the setting sun. Then we set this aside to dry. 

While the other part was drying, we grabbed pencils and drew plants and other shapes onto another piece of paper. I encouraged the kids to draw shapes that weren't too complicated...some listened, some got more ambitious. We then flipped the paper over and painted it black with a little red at one end.

When this was dry, I helped to cut out the shapes from the black paper, and the kids glued them onto the sunset page. The finishing touch was a frog shape made with a scrapbook stamper I had in my stash, for the kids who hadn't drawn one.

Beautiful, aren't they?

Extend the activity:

-Make a taxonomy and add other names for the hoppameleon that might work. Now try it with yourselves.... you can swing from a tree like a monkey, so you could be a humanmonkey....and so on.
-play Animal Mixup on Wikispaces!
-Check out my Frogs and Amphibians Pinterest Board for more hands-on activities
-Learn 5 Green Frogs and print some puppets to go along with it at Picklebums
-print and play a frog counting game at Owens Family blog

-written by Erin from The Usual Mayhem

Disclaimer: This post has an amazon link to the book we used.

Erin at The Usual Mayhem - get to know me better

Hi, I’m Erin and I blog over at The Usual Mayhem. I’m delighted to be a new contributor here at Pre K and K Sharing! I hope that you enjoy the posts I plan to share as much as we’ll enjoy road-testing them.

I’ve been working with kids for more years than I care to admit, including developing and implementing the children's programs for a large community center.  I have fairly extensive experience in working with children who have extra learning challenges, and can adjust an activity to make it work for all participants. 

I have three children of my own, each very different from the others and all three a source of joy for me. Because my house wasn’t nearly loud and messy enough, I opened a home daycare a few years ago. Now that my children are a little older, I take only a few extras at a time.

So that you can get to know me better, here are some of my favourite things we've done this school year:

Collaborative unit studies across a few bloggers, including Wormy Wednesdays , Polar Animals, and Hibernation.

We've also learned how to eat like a baleen whale , Made our own beeswax candles, done some beautiful watercolour fall leaf art, and participated in the Virtual Book Club For Kids every month (my favourites have been Lois Ehlert's Snowballs and Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo.)

I’d also love to share our day to day activities on my own blog with you. You can find me on Facebook, Pinterest, Google+,and Twitter. If I’m not there, I’m probably either out hiking or hiding in my bedroom eating chocolate.