Book of the Month: Under My Tree

 Under My Tree by Muriel Tallandier and Mizuho Fujisawa is my September Book of the Month that celebrates nature and encourages appreciating our Earth's environment. Such a beautiful thing is a child's love of our planet.

Summary: During a visit to her grandparents, Susanne leaves the city behind and journeys into the forest. There she discovers how incredible the natural world can be in this charming story of friendship between a curious child and her favorite tree.

Ages: 3 to 8 years old

"And so, I said goodbye to my tree. I squeezed her tightly and rested my head against her trunk. --Thank you, friend, for making me so happy." 

I can tell a lot of effort was put into this picture book with the colorful and bright pictures, the loving storyline involving friendship and nature, the structure of the book, and the helpful discussion questions on most pages. 

This book would be perfect for any child who loves playing in nature, needs to learn about the seasons, wants to hear a friendship story that let's them think outside of the box, and for fun suggestions on how to learn from a tree. There is also a counting element in this book when counting Susanne's visits to her favorite tree. 

Tallandier and Fujisawa's book will make their readers want to find their favorite tree. 

Virtual Program: Nature Journaling for Kids

 Nature Journaling for Kids was my third virtual program. I knew I wanted to incorporate my creative writing programs virtually and thought nature journaling would be fitting for the summer and for summer reading. 

For this program, I gathered research online and used some craft books and professional books to help me with this one. 

First most, I explained what nature journaling is and what the benefits are of nature journaling. Nature journaling can be beneficial for both kids and adults and is a fun idea to do as a family.

After I talked a little bit about journaling and how you can involve nature, I showed my virtual audience how to make their own nature journal using paper, ribbon, and a folder, along with some cut out nature magazine pictures to decorate and make a collage.

Once done making the journal and showing the steps, I shared some of my simple journal entries to get them started and what things they could look for in nature that they could write about and keep stats about in their journal.

Lastly, I showed them a little clip of me in my backyard interacting with nature and showing them how they can be inspired to write in their journal in their own backyard.

This was a fun to film outside and show them what kind of things I found in my backyard-what kind of flowers, leaves, and even a turtle! It was such luck to run into that turtle that day of filming.

Toddler Art: Nature

My original idea for this Toddler Art was to incorporate nature into craft making like I did with Preschool Picasso, but I wasn't finding too many ideas that would be easy enough and safe for toddlers so I went a more traditional craft route.

We read The Whole Wide World and Me by Toni Yuly. This is a short picture book about a girl who notices nature and realizes she is part of nature too. The group listened very well to the book and then it was time to get to our crafts.

For their first craft, they made dandelions using their finger tips or q-tips and white paint on a pre-printed piece of blue construction paper.

For their second craft, they used tissue paper and glued that onto their paper to make a flower.

Both of these crafts used their fine motor skills and gave them different options with paint and tissue paper.

I had a few new children and they did very well with listening to the story and their crafts.

Other Books: 

Because of an Acorn by Lola M. Schaefer

Preschool Picasso: Nature

Instead of doing a spring theme, I decided to go along with a nature theme for both this month's Preschool Picasso and Toddler Art. There were quite a number of excellent books to use for this theme, but The Weaver by Qian Shi was the best fit for nature and our crafts. The Weaver tells the story about a spider named Stanley and how he collects all these things in nature for his web.

Our first craft tied in perfectly with the story since we made nature sun catchers out of contact paper, paper plates, and dandelions and leaves from nature. This craft was a bit much prep wise, but it was well worth it to have a unique craft that everyone enjoyed.

For our second craft, I used card stock, die-cut flowers, and paint. The group used their fingertips to add paint to their flower petals and painted grass, leaves, and stems. I originally had the idea to use dandelions to paint with, but they wilted too quickly for my liking.

I think the most difficult part of this program was gathering the leaves and dandelions and pre-sticking the contact paper onto the paper plates so the parents only had to add the second layer of contact paper when their child was finished decorating. It was a little stressful worrying about if the leaves looked wilty and if we had enough, but everyone enjoyed the craft and I had enough supplies.

Other books:

Finding Wild Megan Wagner Lloyd

A Web Isabelle Simler

Tiny, Perfect Things M.H. Clark

A Funny Little Bird Jennifer Yerkes

Family Storytime: Spring

Seasonal themes are always fun and a great hit with the storytime crowd and it also gives the kids a chance to learn more about the changes in seasons and their differences.

We did our bean bag song and then read Mouse's First Spring by Lauren Thompson. The group enjoyed this one and it kept their attention.

Next, we did a flannel board based on the book, Fran'sFlower. The group was able to try and feed our plant all sorts of things, such as hamburgers and dog bones, but found out that sunlight and rain is what made our plant grow into a beautiful tulip.

We jumped right into our next book, When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes. I love the simple, but pretty illustrations in this book and the kids seemed to notice the pictures as well, talking about the cats and flowers.

We needed to get rid of some of our sillies, so we sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" and then we went into our last book, Hurray for Spring! by Patricia Hubbell. This went well with the last lyric of our song and it was short enough just to get one more book in before our craft.

The kids are always eager for their craft, and this time we had them plant a green bean seed in a cup using potting soil. They also had a spring coloring page to color.

Other books:

And Then It's Spring Julie Fogliano

Splish, Splash, Spring Jan Carr

Let It Rain Maryann Cocca-Leffler

Other Activities:

Five Tulips

Mushroom in the Rain

Bunny Tales

5 Little Ducks

The Spotted Caterpillar

Colorful Butterflies

5 Little Bunnies

Walter the Waltzing Worm