Creative Family Fun

Your one-stop shop for kids activities and family fun

Terri Thompson

10 Ways to Bring a Book to Life

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We love books in our house.

We love to read them, look at the pictures, listen to them, and many times fall asleep with them.

We also love to do crafts and activities based on some of our favorite books.

Here are 10 fun ways to have fun with books!

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1. Use props. You can use dolls or stuffed animals to help you tell a story. Story boards and flannel boards are also popular props for story telling. Check out this story board example from Rockabye Butterfly for the book Going On a Bear Hunt.

2. Do an art project in the style of the illustrator. There is such beautiful art work in picture books. Get lost in the art work and try to create your own illustrations. We tried to emulate the artwork in the book The Little House.

3. Dress up like a character and act out the book.

4. Use dramatic voices when reading aloud. Don’t be shy! Give that monster a deep, gruff voice or the mouse a squeaky voice. Your kids will love it!

5. Get crafty! Do a craft project based on one of your favorite books. We made paper princesses based on the book The Paper Princess and also collages based on the book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat.

6. Have a theme day. Do crafts, activities and even have snacks that relate to a specific book. Mommy and Me Book Club is full of ideas that can be incorporated into a theme day. One of my favorites is their recent post about the book The Three Little Kittens.

7. Make up a new story with your favorite book characters. What kind of adventures did Little Red Riding Hood have when she went to town, instead of to her Grandmother’s house? Or, tell about the adventures Mary and Laura may have had on a picnic out on the prairie. Let your imagination run wild.

8. Use puppets to tell the story. Make Do & Friend shows you how to make adorable Three Little Pigs Puppets. They’d be perfect for storytelling!

9. Play! Creative Connections for Kids read the book Little Blue Truck and made masking tape roads to play with. What a fun way to interact with a book!

(via Creative Connections for Kids)

10. Have a meal or a snack based on a book. Green Eggs and Ham is always a popular choice. Annie’s Eats made green deviled eggs and ham sliders to celebrate the book.

*Bonus Activity: Go to a story time. Most local libraries offer a story time each week and some even offer an evening story time. Go, discover new books, and enjoy!

What do you like to do to bring a book to life?

100 Dresses

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Did you ever read the book The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes?

It was a favorite of mine growing up and the idea of all of those drawings has always been appealing to me.

Perhaps that’s why, when Lizzie asked me for something to color, I started drawing dresses.

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It started out innocently enough.

I drew her a few dresses and she went off to color them. When she was finished, she came back for more and then kept coming back.

I think I’m drawing dresses every couple of days now.

I typically draw a couple of dresses in pencil, then go back and trace with a Sharpie.

Then, Lizzie colors them with her markers. I’m not sure why she decided that these should only be colored with markers, but it does make them nice and vibrant.

Now, we’ve got quite a large collection of beautiful dresses. Probably nearing 100 if this pile is any indication.

Now, what should we do with them? Make a display, a scrapbook…. hmmmmm.

What would you do with all of these dresses?

Watercolor Resist Flowers

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This isn’t our first attempt at watercolor resist. We first tried our hand at it with our watercolor resist circles.

We keep coming back to this method, because it’s fun and the results always look so pretty.

This time we decided our subjects were going to be flowers.

Lizzie has been very interested in drawing lately and I knew she was pretty confident in her ability to draw a flower. I wanted her to enjoy the process and not get frustrated.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

She drew her flowers in pencil, then traced over them with oil pastels. (You can use crayons for this part. The results will be the same.)

When she was done with the tracing, we got out the paint.

Her black lines helped her stay within the lines a lot better, because ultimately that was HER goal with this project.

So in the end, this project wasn’t a watercolor resist in its truest form because that’s not what Lizzie had in mind. But, the results were fabulous!

So, what was AJ, my 2-1/2 year old, doing? Why, she was working on her own project.

She drew as many lines and circles as she could with many different colors of oil pastels.

When she was finally satisfied with her drawing, she started painting too. She was very deliberate with her painting until she noticed the colors started mixing!

So, here’s AJ’s finished project… a very green watercolor resist abstract painting!

Weekends: Declutter & Create a Donation Bin

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Happy weekend! Are you ready to do something for yourself?

Let’s do a bit of decluttering and create a donation bin to help keep that clutter from taking over your life.

Now, I know this doesn’t sound super-creative or even all that exciting, but hear me out.

This is worth all the time and work. You will feel better, refreshed, and much more organized when you’re done. Believe me, I felt pretty good about myself when I finished.

I spent the weekend weeding through my closet and even recruited my husband to do the same.

We ended up with about three boxes full of clothes to donate and another box of clothes that needed recycling.

And yes, we did enjoy ourselves and had some good conversation while we were at it.

Recruit your children to do the same! Freshen up your house or your closets and help others out at the same time.

How do you decide what can be donated and what should be recycled?

Donate anything that is: clean, in good repair, and free of any stains.

If it has holes, stains, or just looks worn out, it needs to be recycled.

Fold it all neatly and pack it in either boxes or bags. Do you really want to donate a bad full of wadded up clothes? No, I didn’t think so!

Now let’s make that donation bin.

What is the purpose of the donation bin? It’s a place where you can put things that need to be donated as you find them.

Instead of putting those clothes that your kids have outgrown into a drawer, add it to the donation bin.

Once it fills up, it’s time to take a trip to the donation center.

I used the donation bin as an excuse to go shopping, that part’s not necessary… but it is fun.

After wandering the aisles of my favorite home improvement store pondering all the cute baskets and bins I could buy, I came to the realization that I was going to have to find something with a lid.

You see, I have a pretty black cat who really likes to sleep in baskets. Her favorites baskets are ones that are big with something soft in them.

So, big plastic bin with a lid… welcome to my house.

Find something cute, but most of all practical, and set it aside for a donation bin.

I labeled mine with a simple sign taped on the top. Make sure the family knows where you are keeping it and what the purpose is for.

I decided to put mine in the laundry room. It’s out of the way, yet easily accessible.

Now that you’ve decluttered and made your donation bin, you’ve got two things left to do.

1. Take a trip to the donation center and drop everything off.

2. Relex, celebrate, go out for ice cream, enjoy your family!

Working together to take care of your home and to help each other is always rewarding. And, your kids are never to young to participate!

How are you planning on spending your weekend?

Kids Co-Op

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I’m so excited to introduce the Kids Co-Op to you. I’m joining forces with some wonderful and fun kid’s blogs to bring you a weekly link-up. You get to show off what you’ve been working on!

So, please join up and share your favorite post. (And, we’d love you forever if you’d link back to us!) Your link will show up on all of the hosts blogs! So, if you’re excited as I am, join up, visit some new blogs, and have a lot of fun!

Be sure to check back here every Friday for the Kid’s Co-op. Starting next week, I’ll be sharing some of my favorite posts that were linked up the previous week! (My 10 Ways posts will now be moved to Thursday to make room for this fun and fabulous link-up.)