5 Awesome Interactive Books and Learning Activities to Go With Them

1. The best books make us want to read, leave us in anticipation of each page turned.  I remember when I was a kid, there was a book that made that anticipation even greater.  It was called The Monster at the End of This Book and it featured Grover from Sesame Street, imploring me not to turn the page because he was scared of the monster at the end of the book.  I loved turning each page and seeing how it affected Grover, as if my reading the book truly made an impact on the story.  Monster at the End of This Book is an old classic to me.  I am so happy to see that same excitement in our four-year-old daughter, Beth, when we read some of the new interactive books that have come out.  One word of warning: do NOT read these books before bedtime! We learned this one the hard way… she got so excited by the books that she was up for hours.  These books are much better for a morning or early afternoon storytime.

2 & 3.  Beth’s favorites are by the author Herve Tullet.  He has several books published; we own Mix It Up and Press Here.  They are both fantastic and encourage the reader to interact with colored dots.  In Press Here, the reader has to tap, shake and move colored dots by tapping on the correct colors.  Mix It Up has the reader mix colors by rubbing, shaking and squeezing the pages of the book.  Beth can barely contain herself as we move from page to page.  It was from reading these two books that she knew by age three that mixing blue and yellow makes green, blue and red makes purple, and red and yellow makes orange.  But, why leave it to the books to have all the fun?  Grab some paper and paints (finger prints work really well!) and try to recreate the pages of the books.  Try giving your child only the three primary colors and ask them to make purple and orange flowers.  Watch them apply the skills they have learned from the books to mix their own colors.  

4. The next interactive book we got is called Tap the Magic Tree, by Christie Matheson.  This one is another gem.  Readers are asked to wiggle, jiggle and tap the pages to help a lonely tree change through the seasons.  Beth knew all about the seasons before she had ever seen snow, because of reading this book with her.  The illustrations are also beautiful.  After reading this book, it is really fun to do a seasons tree chart.  Get a large piece of paper and draw it into quarters.  In each quarter, draw a “naked” tree (with no leaves).  You will need cotton balls, a package of m&m’s, 1 piece of green construction paper (turn into pieces), and pink or purple paint.  The first tree (Winter) gets covered in chitin ball “snow”.  The second tree (Spring) gets pink or purple thumbprint flowers.  The third tree (summer) gets green construction paper leaves.  The fourth tree (Fall) gets red, orange, yellow, and brown m&m leaves on its branches and on the ground.

5. The last interactive book I love is interactive, not in actions, but in words.  If you have never read The Book With No Pictures, by b.j. Novak, you are in for a treat.  As the title implies, this book does not have a single picture...but it doesn’t need them.  The words themselves are so interactive that Beth started to recognize certain words and yell them out when we got to them.  A fun activity for this book is to choose a page and ask your child to draw a picture for the page.  You might be surprised by what they draw.  You can also play a fun game by individually writing some of your child's’ favorite words from this book on notecards.  Then, start by having your child pick the cards and hold them up for you to read.  After a while of playing this game, you start picking the cards and holding them up for your child to read.  You will be surprised at how fast they start to recognize these words as sight words and are able to read them.

There are many interactive books out there, but these are our favorites.  If you have other favorites please share them in the comments of the blog.   If you have an activity to go with it, we would love to hear about that, too, or if you would like for us to create a lesson type activity to go with your favorite book, let us know in the comments...we love to design learning activities!

3-2-1 Baking and Learning

Several years ago my mom introduced me to the 3-2-1 Cupcake.  She got the recipe from a Weight Watchers meeting, but I have no idea where it originated.  All that really matters to me is that it is easy, delicious, and my four-year-old daughter loves to make them.  Plus, she learns all kinds of skills while she makes them.  This makes me very happy. This especially makes me happy when we have rainy or cold weather and need something fun to keep her occupied.

The premise of the 3-2-1 Cupcake is super simple:

3 - tablespoons of box cake mix (any flavor - Beth likes vanilla and strawberry best)

2 - tablespoons of water - mix well

1 -  minute in the microwave

Viola!  A fresh cupcake!  The best part is that Beth makes her own.  She has learned to count the numbers of tablespoons, how to measure and lift the cake mix gently out of the bag without spilling it, how to mix the water with the dry ingredients, and how to set the microwave to 1 minute.  We also talk about how the heat makes the ingredients cook and rise.  These are all skills that will translate to school when she starts, as well as being excellent real-life skills.

Once Beth had mastered the 3-2-1 Cupcake, we moved on to making cookies.  I will admit that I don’t have a lot of free time,  so we often use the prepackaged bags of cookie mix and doctor them up a little.  It would be more beneficial to have Beth measure out all the ingredients, but that is a task we save for rainy weekends.  Either way, she has learned a lot from helping me make cookies.  She  is very good at counting and cracking the eggs for me, she knows how to turn on the mixer and  keep her hands away from  it while it is running, she can scoop and measure the cookie dough, and she is a world-class cookie dough eater.  

We normally add a few extra ingredients to the mix, just to personalize it a little and give Beth more of an opportunity to measure out and add ingredients.  I  like to add a half cup of chocolate chips or dried cranberries (depending on the style of cookie we are making) and a teaspoon of Mexican vanilla (makes everything taste better!).  We usually share the task of measuring and scooping the dough...Beth does the first 12 and then I finish it.  Her little hands just aren’t strong enough to work the dough scoop for more than a dozen scoops. Sometimes she misses the mark and puts a cookie too close to the edge. They come out with a flat side, but we like to sing the Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood song about how things still taste good, even if they don't look exactly like you want.

Baking can also be a fun chemistry lesson.  I’m not a chemistry teacher, and Beth is only four, so I simplify the process as much as I can.  We talk a lot about how when air gets hot, it gets bigger and rises (that’s what makes a hot air balloon work).  We also talk about yeast, and how it is a teeny tiny microbe that produces different gasses that get bigger as they get hot (just like blowing up a balloon).  As the air in the oven gets hotter and heats the cookie dough, all those gases get released inside the dough and make it get puffy.  That’s why we have to leave space between cookies and why the cookies puff up as they cook.  It’s also why the cookies sometimes fall back down as they cool  off after we take them out of the oven...the gasses inside cool back down, too.

If you haven't already, try some simple baking projects with your kids. They will learn science and life skills, and everyone will get a delicious treat!

Teaching Science with Valentine's Day Cards

It's almost Valentine's Day!  My husband and I basically ignore the holiday with each other (other than one tradition), but my family likes to exchange cards.  (James and I have a tradition that the day after Valentine's Day, we go out and buy the biggest box of chocolates we can find, for half price, and share them for dessert the rest of the month.)  With the rest of my family, we realized when our daughter turned two that we had hit the jackpot; no more handing our money to Hallmark, because we have a little card-crafter right here in the house.

So, every Valentine's Day, we set our daughter up at the kitchen table with blank cardstock, a pile of heart stickers, some pink and red markers, and let her go to town.  Cards for everyone! Yay! This year, Beth learned that if you write on pink paper with a pink marker, it doesn't show up. I got to explain contrasting colors to her, and she subsequently chose a purple marker.

Last year we tried glitter glue, but it was slightly disastrous (note: three is still too young for glitter glue).  This year, she could probably handle the glitter glue, but it has gone MIA somewhere in the “craft room” (seriously, don't try to go in there… It might swallow you and we wouldn't even know where to start looking).  Besides, stickers are the best.  She loves putting them on, they are fairly tidy, and we somehow have a never-ending supply of them.  (Where do all those stickers come from?)

We also spent some quality time together this weekend, getting cards and candy ready to take to Beth's class at preschool.  She was so excited to help put the cards and candy together.

Next year, when Beth is a little older, I have a fantastic Valentine's craft to do with her.  I have students in my library make light up Valentine's cards.  They love it, and actually learn some science while they're at it.  I can't wait to try it with Beth and I'm sure my family will be impressed with the results.

Here is how we do it.  They are fairly easy to make and all the supplies can be found on Amazon, in Hobby Lobby, or even at the dollar store.  All you need are the following supplies:

• Cardstock
• Markers, stickers, decorations, etc.
• Copper tape (¼”)
• Scotch tape
• Mini LED bulb (surface mount)
• Coin cell battery (3v Lithium)

To create the card, there are just a few steps.

1. First, fold your paper to the size card you want and draw or decorate the front.  When you are done, on the inside, draw a simple parallel circuit with the LED bulb in the location you want to light up.  You will need to have two pics of copper tape running from the battery to the LED; one too each “leg” of the LED.
   
   
   
2. Place the two pieces of copper tape on the lines you drew between the LED and the battery.
3. Tape a piece of copper tape face down to the battery, then tape the battery to the copper tape that is attached to the card (you are making a sandwich of the battery between copper tape). The piece of copper tape that is face down on the battery needs to reach to the other piece of copper tape on your card. This is the on/off "switch".
4. Bend the legs of the LED out flat and tape the LED so that each leg is touching one of the copper tape pieces.  Test the LED.  If it didn't work, turn it 180 degrees, so that the legs are facing the opposite way.  LEDs have one negative and one positive leg and they have to be on the correct side.  To make the LED work the best, take a small piece of copper tape and tape it face down over the leg of the LED to hold the contract in place.
   
5. Cut a small hole in the front of your card where the LED can poke through, and write “Press Here” above your "switch".  If your "switch" needs some extra space to stop it from being on all the time, I found that creating two springs from two strips of cardstock crisscrossed over each other (photo below) can help lift the card so it is not pressing on the copper tape and activating the card.  Glue or tape a spring on either side of the "switch".
   
   Once you have done that, you can glue the card together.
   
   
   
   
6. Give someone your awesome card and watch them smile.

10 Ways Board Games Boost Your Child's Intelligence

1. Want your child to excel in math?  Studies have shown that playing numerical board games can increase a child's numeric knowledge in as few as four 15-minute sessions.  This includes games like Sequence for Kids and Hi Ho Cherry-O.  Try playing Monopoly and make your child run the bank.  They will learn how to count by multiples of 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100.  They will learn basic addition skills in order to make change.  If you want to increase your child's math skills even further, there are several fun additional games that you can try.   Once they are ready to start adding, there are several excellent games like Gopher It, Hive, and 7 Ate 9 that kids love to play and that require players to apply math skills while they are playing.
2. Build critical thinking skills by playing a game of Connect Four or Four in a Row.  Watch your child think and strategize as they try to get those four tokens in a row before you do.  They have to use skills like prediction and thinking ahead.  Once your child is playing well with a simple strategy game like Four in a Row, you can move on to more difficult strategy games like Battleship or Guess Who.  As they get even older, there are some fantastic strategy games that the adults will enjoy as well, like Catan Junior.
3. Playing multi-player games teaches patience.  We were playing a game of Candyland the other day and it was killing our four-year-old to have to wait her turn.  We let her have the task of handing the spinner to each player as their turn came up.  I think that was the only thing stopping her from jumping in early for her turn each time around.  By the end of the game I noticed that she was waiting her turn with a lot more patience than at the beginning of the game.
   
4. Board games can help teach your child how to win or lose gracefully.  We try to emphasize that playing games is about having fun with family and friends, rather than about who wins the game.  In this day and age, it seems that kids rarely have to deal with failure.  Board games are a nice way to teach your child how to handle losing graciously.  Especially since you can always play another game and give them an opportunity to improve.
5. Most board games will assist in building your child's memory.  Obviously, playing matching games will help build memory, but almost any board game can help.  Think about the instructions.  There are very few board games that don't include a list of rules for play.  Pick up a game of Uno or Go Fish.  While your child is playing, they are having to constantly recall the rules of the game and ensure that they, and other players, are adhering to them.
6. Teach cooperative skills by playing games that require teamwork.  Games like Max, Race To the Treasure, or Pictionary Junior, teach kids to play with their teammates.  These games can help kids that are shy to make friends and come out of their shell.  We are especially interested in these types of games for our only child.  Any time her cousins or friends visit, we try to incorporate cooperative games.
7. Are you ready to start training that surgeon? How about working on some hand-eye coordination? Games like Operation and Jenga will teach your child to be patient and steady as they try to win the game.  These two might take some time to master, but your child will have a sense of satisfaction once they finally learn to effectively use their hands.  It's also fun to throw in a little biology and explain why their hands are more still when they hold their breath.
8. Games like Clue Junior and Guess Who can introduce the skill of deduction.  As children try to use the clues to solve the mystery, they are cataloging and organizing information in their minds.  These skills will translate to critical thinking skills that will benefit them as they begin school.
9. Even as young as four, your child can start learning basic geography by playing games like Ticket to Ride: First Journey.  In this simplified version of the adult game, kids follow rail lines throughout the United States and learn the location of key cities in several states.  Our four-year-old loves to look at maps of any kind.  If there is a map on the wall, we have to stop and look at it.  With this game, she gets to actually interact with the map, and hopefully learn the basic locations of several cities and states.
10. Last, but not least, playing board games teaches your child to enjoy family time.  Let's face it, it's not always easy to power down and spend time as a family.  We are all busy, working, going to school, attending gymnastics lessons and dance and golf lessons and swim lessons…the list goes on and on.  And then, there's all the day to day stuff to fit in…packing lunches, making dinner, baths, homework.  I understand.  But, when you have 30 minutes on a weekend, try turning off the TV or tablet, and sitting at the table together as a family, for a quick game or two.  Trust me.  This will teach your child more than you know about relationships, cooperation, and love.