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Monday, September 17, 2012

September Virtual Book Club For Kids


Rrralph  by Lois Ehlert

 


This month our featured author for the August Virtual Book Club for Kids is Lois Ehlert.  She has written and illustrated so many fabulous books that it was hard to choose just one.  That is, until I read Rrralph to my children this summer.  They thought it was Laugh Out Loud Funny. 


Gathering Activity: Doggie Ears


Materials Needed: Long strips of white construction paper large enough to wrap around a child's head.  Two Black Doggie Ears.  We cut ours to have jagged edges like those in the story.  Stapler 




1-Allow the child to color the ears and white paper.  



2-Staple the headband to fit the child's head.  Then Staple the ears to either side of the headband. (This is an adult step, but the children love to help use the stapler)! 





Circle Time:




I read Rrralph by Lois Ehlert to the children.  It is a clever book with clever artwork.  On each page, the dog's owner asks a question and the dog responds in ways that seem like he is speaking.  He tells his owner his name is "Rrralph" and he is standing on the "Roof, Roof" and the ground feels "Rough, Rough" on his paws.  The three year olds thought it was a very funny book...and so did their Mommies, as we groaned together at the old puns.  Ehlert uses recycled materials in this book to create her illustrations.  The result is bold and amazing.


Ralph (to the tune of Bingo)

There was a farmer had a dog and Ralph was his name-o.

R-A-L-P-H, R-A-L-P-H, R-A-L-P-H and Ralph was his name. 
(We sang the song, replacing one letter each time, with a bark).

Art Activity: Dog Art Collage

 



Materials Needed
*Using the image from the cover of the book, draw an outline of the dog on a ¼ sheet of posterboard (needs to be heavy paper) with a black sharpie. 


*Collage materials:  soda pop tabs, fabric, various printed papers, buttons, recycled  odds and ends, foam shapes, etc...
 



*Glue

Provide the children with various collage materials to fill in the outline to create their own dogs. Let them name their dogs and write the name of the dog on top.





I ADORE how these turned out.  The children were able to do these with very little guidance needed.    


 
Snack:  Puppy Cookie



Ingredients Needed Per Child:
One Nutter Butter, One Vanilla Wafer, One large round Sugar Cookie, Brown frosting, kid-friendly plastic knife, 3 M and Ms Candy pieces





1-Allow each child to frost the large cookie. 



2-Open the Nutter Butter.  Place one piece on each side of the large cookie to create ears.
3-Place the Nilla Wafer in the center of the face.
4-Add eyes and a nose. 

The children loved making and eating these!




Games


In order to play our two games, we needed our own doghouse! 



This one was created by cutting arched doors in the two opposite sides of a large box.  Then it was wrapped with newspaper and covered with paw prints.  One of the talented moms who comes to our Mommy and Me Book Club made this.  Don't you love it?!?!?

1-Doggie Doggie Where’s Your Bone?





Each child took a turn hiding inside the box with the bone.  Another friend came and took the bone and hid it.  We all sang "Doggie, Doggie Where's Your Bone?  Somebody took it from your home.  Guess Who?"  Then the Doggie came out and tried to guess which friend had the bone.  We let them guess until they found the right person.  We did not limit their guesses. 

 2-Musical Dog House-



This was played a little bit like musical chairs. We played doggie themed music as the children crawled on the floor like puppy dogs in a circle each taking turns to crawl through the dog house.  When the music stopped, the person in the dog house stayed inside and made one of the sounds Ralph makes in the book.   




VirtualBookClub

Here are the other participants in this month's Virtual Book Club.  Please check out their great ideas, too! Can you believe how big this has gotten?  So happy to have so many other bloggers who love reading as much as we do!






I am so excited to see what fun book inspired activities YOU did with your children, based on Lois Ehlert's books!  Please link up your posts below!

 

 There are a few rules for this blog hop that we ask you to follow, so make sure to read them:

  1. Link up only posts inspired by Lois Elhert that share children's book inspired crafts, activities, recipes, etc. Any other posts will be deleted.
  2. Visit other blog posts on the linky and comment on or share the ones you love!
  3. Add our Virtual Book Club button to your post if you'd like.




11 comments:

Kristina

So many adorable ideas!! I love how those collages turned out. We will need to try several of these activities with my daughter who is dog OBSESSED right now. She also loved Rrralph!

Jen R

how cute is the dog art collage?!?! I think I need to do with my 3 year old :)

Angell

I'm so glad you did this! I'm hoping to participate in next month's author/books!

Bethany @ No Twiddle Twaddle

Your activities look like so much fun. I especially want to try the dog collage with my kids. : ) We just read RRRalph for the first time today!

Jackie Higgins

I love this. I kept scrolling down and saying, "Oh that's cute." I'm going to have to pin several things from this post!! I really love the cute collage Ralph's! Oh, and I love how you replaced a letter with a dog bark in the song. Clever.

Growing Book by Book

We need to get this book. My son is all about dogs right now. As always, your ideas are so clever. Thanks for sharing.

Anne

Rrralph is one of the few Ehlert books we've yet to explore, and it sounds like the humor would be right up our alley! The puppy cookies are adorable, and made of some of my son's favorites - sure to be a hit! Thanks for hosting!

Vini aka Pooh!

Love the moving box doggie house idea - I really need to do that with my little girl. RRRalph was such a fun book to read

Unknown

Ooh I love the fabric collage! Your little guy's face with the puppy ears on is so precious!

Carolyn

Those cookies are so cute! We also love this book, and those cookies would be a great surprise after reading it one day!

Deborah

I have never ever seen this book! I am going to have to see if I can get me a copy! I love it!

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