Using elements from a book for activity ideas
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  1. #1
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    Default Using elements from a book for activity ideas

    Hi folks

    I'm trying to better balance out the activities I provide as at the moment it's very heavily child led. I have 3 little ones at 12 months, 21 months and 30 (with 2 older ones after school) and I just seem to bounce from nappy change to mealtime to nap time, with the seemingly constant toy disputes between the two older little ones and making sure the baby (who is just learning to walk) doesn't get caught in the crossfire and before I know it, it's school run time and another day has disappeared!

    I'm hoping that a more structured day with some adult led and guided activities will help me to actually be able to better "play" with the children as opposed to simply referee and also allow me to more fully explore all the areas of L&D with them.

    The eldest little one has recently become interested in story books (woohoo!) and I have seen other childminders say that they use stories as a theme for activities. Doing similar things, visiting similar places, associated crafts/baking/games etc. Do any of you guys do this? Have you tried it and hated it? Love it?

    I'm sat here with my fairly large book collection and I'm still struggling a bit for activity ideas so I would be extremely grateful for story suggestions which have yielded lots of material for activities.

    Also, is what I'm asking the same as a story sack or a bit different?

    Many thanks in advance.

    Vyx.

  2. #2
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    Oh i love nothing more than extending the ideas from a book that is loved by the children It really helps me have activites for a week or 2.

    I use a mixture of story sacks, crafts, outdoor activites, baking, looking at real life videos on you tube, songs etc. Sometimes i just use the story sack to bring the book to life as a reading it, even of o then do not do any further activity related to the book. here is my examples.

    Dear Zoo.
    All young children seem to love this book. So i made a story sack which contained the "crates" that the animals came it. The "crates" were actual boxes from around the home that i made into the crates, and inside each crate is apicture of each animal. This sack works really well for bringing the stpry to life for the little ones, but also works as a stand alone activity that they like to play with as it gives them lots of opportunity to explore opening and shutting lids/screwing tops etc. Here is a link to the thread i put on in relation to this.
    http://www.childmindinghelp.co.uk/fo...boo-boxes.html

    The Very Hungry Caterpillar
    My lot loved the Very Hungry Caterpillar. So i used the book as a basis for lots of activity ideas over a 4 week period
    1) got caterpillars and watched them grow and change onto butterflies
    2) went bug hunting in garden for leaves that may have been eaten by caterpillars
    3) painted hand print butterfly pictures
    4) made butterfly templates and used different cut out shapes for their wings, which the children glued on
    5) watched you tube videos of the caterpillars hatching from their cocoons
    6) went to chester zoo and explored for ages the butterfly exhibit
    7) caught and watched butterflies in the garden
    8) cut egg boxes up and painted them like caterpillars
    9) used the food pictures from the book and photocopied them to make a counting game
    10) used ther same food pictures to pin on out washing line in garden to encourage counting
    11) printed out the days of the week for my 3 year old and when i said a day of the week she would find the fruit that he had eaten that day

    and most propbably lots more that i cant even remember.

    Sometimes I just simply make laminated pictures of a book, and when I am going through it encourage the children to pick the relevant picture to the page of thhe book we are on. I find this helps keep them engaged for longer

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by AgentTink View Post
    Oh i love nothing more than extending the ideas from a book that is loved by the children It really helps me have activites for a week or 2.

    I use a mixture of story sacks, crafts, outdoor activites, baking, looking at real life videos on you tube, songs etc. Sometimes i just use the story sack to bring the book to life as a reading it, even of o then do not do any further activity related to the book. here is my examples.

    Dear Zoo.
    All young children seem to love this book. So i made a story sack which contained the "crates" that the animals came it. The "crates" were actual boxes from around the home that i made into the crates, and inside each crate is apicture of each animal. This sack works really well for bringing the stpry to life for the little ones, but also works as a stand alone activity that they like to play with as it gives them lots of opportunity to explore opening and shutting lids/screwing tops etc. Here is a link to the thread i put on in relation to this.
    http://www.childmindinghelp.co.uk/fo...boo-boxes.html

    The Very Hungry Caterpillar
    My lot loved the Very Hungry Caterpillar. So i used the book as a basis for lots of activity ideas over a 4 week period
    1) got caterpillars and watched them grow and change onto butterflies
    2) went bug hunting in garden for leaves that may have been eaten by caterpillars
    3) painted hand print butterfly pictures
    4) made butterfly templates and used different cut out shapes for their wings, which the children glued on
    5) watched you tube videos of the caterpillars hatching from their cocoons
    6) went to chester zoo and explored for ages the butterfly exhibit
    7) caught and watched butterflies in the garden
    8) cut egg boxes up and painted them like caterpillars
    9) used the food pictures from the book and photocopied them to make a counting game
    10) used ther same food pictures to pin on out washing line in garden to encourage counting
    11) printed out the days of the week for my 3 year old and when i said a day of the week she would find the fruit that he had eaten that day

    and most propbably lots more that i cant even remember.

    Sometimes I just simply make laminated pictures of a book, and when I am going through it encourage the children to pick the relevant picture to the page of thhe book we are on. I find this helps keep them engaged for longer
    I do love it when you can come up with a whole theme that just seems to run and run as the children are still so interested in it. Sometimes though the activity from the book could just be one thing - we had a book about Noah's arc where the front few pages before the story even started were all different animal prints - that inspired me to do a craft activity where children copied the prints - zebra, giraffe, tiger, leopard.

    I don't have story sacks but always have lots of soft animals, plastic insects, vehicles etc that I can pull together for story props.

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  5. #4
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    Going on a Bear Hunt and The Gingerbread Man have great extension activities as well

  6. #5
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    Not to be predictable but The Gruffalo is a firm fave with my mindees and dd
    There's lots of follow on activities online if you Google it, such as colouring pages, connect the dots, make your own jigsaws etc. Also we made our own Gruffalo, mouse, fox, owl and snake masks and put a play on of the book, was amazing, even the 11mo 'snake' was on form, slithering around on her tummy and everything lol!
    Handas surprise is fab too as she carries a variety of fruit to her friend, which we examined, talked about, painted with, looked inside, then ate for snack (not the painted fruit obviously!)
    Have fun xxx
    Kelly xx

  7. #6
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    These suggestions are brilliant, thank you so much

    I have the hungry caterpillar at the moment but I'm familiar with it and had a feeling that would be a good one

    I love the gruffalo I obv need to have a good google too

    Many thanks.

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    There are a lot of ideas on the net linked to 'Goodnight Gorilla'. You can link this book with Dear Zoo for the younger one. Jaspers Beanstalk and Rosies Walk are my personal favourites- again lots of ideas out there linked with these two too.

  9. #8
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    we had a "lazy goose loves chocolate mousse" day a few months ago....G (remember him?) was mad on the book so i printed out all the animals, the food etc and we made our own story with the pictures. we also had all the food mentioned in the book....even macaroni! and choc mousse of course. he helped make the cheese sauce and cut up the carrots.

    was a fab day!

    wibble xxx
    The bats have left the bell tower.....

  10. #9
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    I love these ideas. We had a gruffalo day at my dd's play school. We made gruffalo cakes. Little choc cupcakes with choc icing decorated with purple pricked (smarties), poisonous warts (midget gems), orange eyes (smarties) etc. it was great fun

  11. #10
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  12. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by FloraDora View Post
    Thank you

 

 

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