TD Summer Reading Club Week 1: Ages 4-8

Welcome to the TD Summer Reading Club! This year our overall theme is "PLAY" so can you just imagine how much fun we are going to have this summer? There will be 8 weeks of fantastic reading programs throughout the summer and ending just before school starts, it is an amazing way to keep up your reading for the entire summer! There are contests and prizes each week so we can read and play all summer long. 

WEEK 1: Play with your imagination

For week 1 of our reading program we played with our imagination. We allowed our minds to wander off and dream of anything we wanted to! Our question of the day was : What is your favourite thing to imagine?  And there was some brilliant answers! Everything from riding on a unicorn across a rainbow to building the biggest and best Lego city. 

The first book we read was: 

This was a very funny story similar to Jack and the Bean Stalk about talking mustaches, ears, eyes and noses! At the end of the story all the characters fell out the magic mustache and formed a funny face on the ground. We all closed our eyes and imagined the funniest face we could make, and showed each other and had quite a few laughs!


GAME: We played a mystery bag game in between stories to test our imaginations! I put texturally weird things (cotton balls, paper clips, marshmallows, pipe cleaners and pompoms ) in brown paper bags. Place the bags in a row on a table and have the kids reach inside them, assembly-line style, to guess what they're touching. On the count of three we all shouted out what we thought was in the bag (I think some of the kids screamed marshmallows a little too loudly) but it was a ton of fun imagining what could be in the bag.

The second book we read was: 

After we read this book we discussed what the strangest thing we ever saw on our way home from school! And then we let our imaginations completely wild and thought about the strangest thing that could possibly happen on our walks home from school. We talked about seeing dragons fly up next to you then offer you a ride home, swimming home in a lake full of jellybeans and even riding home on a unicorn!

The last book we read was: 

This is a very interactive book where the kids can help turn the pages and see what kind of crazy animal they can create if the spell went awry. We created some frabbits (frog and rabbit) a nird (Newt and Bird) and lastly a half frog, half prince: a prog. 

For the craft this week we made a dreamcatcher! So when we are dreaming away at night all of our bad imaginations would get caught in it. 

Supplies Needed:

·         One paper plate

·         Scissors

·         Hole punch

·         Yarn (four 12" sections and one 48" section)

·         Clear tape

·         Pony beads

·         Feathers (ours were about 3 1/2-4" long)

·         Markers

Directions:

1. Cut a 5" (or so) circle from the center of the paper plate, leaving the outer rim of the plate intact.

2. Use the hole punch to make a series of holes every inch or so around the inner edge of the ring.

3. Use markers to decorate the ring with patterns and images as desired.

4. Weave the 48" piece of yarn through the holes in the inner edge of the ring going across the ring to create a web for the bad dreams to get caught in. This is the fun part--even young children can relax and weave this inner section. The funkier, the better! We secured the beginning and ends of our yarn to the back of the ring with clear tape.

5. Use the hole punch to create a single hole at the top of the ring to hang the dream catcher. Make a loop from one of the 12" long strands of yarn, run it through the hole and knot it to secure. If you like, you can string a couple of pony beads onto the hanging loop to add some color.

6. Use the hole punch to create three holes about an inch apart along the bottom edge of the dream catcher. Feed the remaining 12" strands of yarn through the holes and double knot to secure. Feed pony beads onto the yarn coming from each hole. Knot and then use clear tape to attach a feather to the bottom of each strand. Trim excess yarn with scissors. Repeat to make three strands of beads with feathers coming off the bottom of the dream catcher. I made the center stand slightly longer than the other two.

Next week our theme is SUPERHEROES!! We will be talking about all the different heroes and villains that we know and then by the end of the day (after a long and strenuous superhero camp) we will become our own superheroes!

Remember to keep bring in your reading logs each week so that you can enter to win the weekly prize. See you next week!