We recently took part in the 2013 Summer Love Books Exchange organised by The Educators’ Spin On It. We had never taken part in a book exchange before but I thought it was a great way of discovering new books, crafts and blogs.
We were paired up with Hannah from makingboysmen.com as our children are of a similar age. There are lots of books I would recommend to other people but we finally decided on Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers. The book features a boy and a penguin and has a central theme of friendship and adventure. I really enjoyed thinking of potential crafts and thinking about reading and how to carry on the themes in a wider context. There were obviously some great penguin crafts, which I must write about here at some point, and we put together a fun package with 5 crafts relating to the book.
The children love receiving mail so enjoyed opening their package, which contained a copy of Aliens love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort and craft materials. The weather has been amazing over the last few weeks but I managed to get the children indoors to try out our craft package.
First of all we read the book together which was brilliant. It’s a great book to introduce the concept of rhyme and the story is really funny. I’m still trying and failing at the potty training so I’m hoping all this talk of pants will make an impression on my toddler!
We were sent a huge bag of playdough, pipe cleaners and googly eyes to make our own aliens. The toddler loved this task and made as many aliens as he could, including a dog alien.
There was also a mini washing line with underpants and colouring sheets which we’re saving for another craft session.
The playdoh aliens are fabulous – I must remember to try that with Kit next time we need an indoor play.