Exploring Beetles with Baby for Children's Book Week 2013

This week is Children's Book Week! I think that by now, House of Burke readers know that I am a book fanatic. Kingston has an extensive book collection and I try to start every single activity we do with a related book. K will literally throw his toys to the side to grab whatever book I am offering. It thrills me to no end!   We are currently on the last leg of our bug baby-school unit, and I wanted to share the book-based activity we did today!

Kingston has a giant copy of The Very Clumsy Click Beetle by Eric Carle that he has been really enjoying reading for the past couple weeks. He has also been completely head over heels obsessed with his little Melissa & Doug Buggies. So, today I decided to put these two things together and begin a little beetle exploration together. 

We sat down together, and I pulled out the story to read. Kingston was immediately drawn to the bright cover. Before I opened it, I handed Kingston one of the little beetles from the bug play set. He grabbed right for it and started tapping it on the book. The beetle helped to hold his attention throughout the story. This is a great tactic for reading with baby. If your baby enjoys being hands on and is constantly turning the pages and shutting the book, handing them a related toy really helps them to make correlations and focus more on the story. Kingston tapped the beetle on each page. It was funny to watch him actually tap the picture of the beetle with the toy beetle. As I read the story, I helped him act out the parts with the beetle. We flipped the beetle on its back, and eventually made the beetle flip and land on its feet. 

When I got to the last page of the story (the page makes the clicking sound of the click beetle), Kingston got so excited! He waved his hands up and down at lightning speed and laughed. So, of course I kept opening the book to the last page over and over again. Then I made him laugh even more by taking his beetle and tickling him with it while making a "clicking" sound!

After we finished our story, I put together beetle related sensory activity to further the concept with Kingston. 

For this project you will need: finger paint (I chose green and orange hoping that they would mix and make brown, but that didn't really happen), a plastic ziptop bag, a piece of white cardstock, and some plastic beetles (I purchased these at the Dollar Tree).

I put the cardstock inside of the bag, squirted some paint inside, popped the bugs in, and sealed it shut. If you have a super rambunctious little one, you could tape the bag closed, but K doesn't ever try to open it.

I gave it to Kingston and he immediately started shaking it wildly, causing the beetles to fly all over the bag and disperse the paint. It is getting so difficult to snap a picture of him now that he is super active and on the go! Once he had settled down, I placed the bag on the floor and pointed out the beetles to him. He pushed them around for a few seconds and then went back to smacking the paint bag all over the place!

When he was done, I removed the painting from the bag so that it could air dry. The outcome wasn't the prettiest, but the activity was process art (not product) as usual! 

Kingston had so much fun doing this book-based activity! We can't wait to do even more crafts and activities based on our favorite books!

I am thrilled to be able to cohost the Children's Book Week 2013 linky with some amazing bloggers:

Mom to 2 Posh Divas

Fun-A-Day 

JDaniel4's Mom

Smiling Like Sunshine

There's Just One Mommy 

What are your favorite children's books? Have you done any book extension activities? Please feel free to link-up your favorite posts about/extending children's book below!