What Can You Do With...?

I am always excited when I find picture books focusing on Hispanic heritage; they are always so bold and vibrant and full of color and life. These two glowing picture books are both by Carmen Tafolla.

What Can You Do with a Rebozo? by Carmen Tafolla, illustrated by Amy Cordova, 2008
This book contains beautiful illustrations, especially of the clothing. The main character dances La Bamba in a beautiful white traditional dress while holding the rebozo. Even though the words do not rhyme, they do not need to, they fall in perfectly. We meet the narrator's family - mother, father, sister, brother, dog, and more while she also introduces us to the creative ways one can use a rebozo, or Mexican shawl. The story flows from one idea to the next seamlessly.







What Can You Do with a Paleta? by Carmen Tafolla, illustrated by Magaly Morales, 2009
We are introduced to the neighborhood with the illustrations, and to the culture with the wonderful words.
The paletero opens his mouth wide and I can almost hear him shouting "PALETAAAS!" Again we meet the narrator's family - brother, dog, mother - and we can almost feel the tightness in her chest as she struggles to decide what flavor of paleta she would like. The illustrations are quite different from the first book, but equally breathtaking. They remind me so much of places I have lived and visited, and when I see the fence on the cover of the book I see my grandmother's house.

Talk Like a Pirate @ the Librarrry!

Earlier this month, in honor of the 19th being Talk Like a Pirate Day, we had a pirate preschool activity where the children created spyglasses and decorated pirate hats and swords. Tomorrow we will be having an elementary aged activity where the children will be creating their own treasure boxes (and spyglasses if they'd like). We've asked the staff to dress up as pirates, and if the children show up wearing a pirate costume (or something pirate-related), they win a prize (a small pirate beach ball).

There are a bunch of grrreat (couldn't resist!) ideas dealing with pirate crafts. The kids will be making their treasure chests first, and if they'd like they can make a spyglass. They then can bring their treasure chests over to a table that will be set up with beads and jewels that they can take and place in their treasure chests. They'll be able to take these home with them. I have a few eye patches, so if there are enough then each child can also have an eye patch. I also put together a "pirate code" book that has information on the crew members of a pirate ship, the parts of a ship, and a pirate dictionary so they can talk like a pirate! (Spoonful.com has The Code craft and template).

DLTK's Crafts for Kids has a great printable and instructions for the treasure chest. Youth Online has another similar template. If you want to get really detailed and crafty, Ashlee's Art has another treasure chest example. And a really cute one featuring a Raven can be found at Ammey's Art Attic.

For more Arrrty craft ideas, make sure to sail towards these sites:

The Classroom Creative

First Stage - this site has a great handout where we got our pirate dictionary and ship and crew sheets

Spoonful Pirate Party Ideas

Talk Like a Pirate

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, I've decided make this post on September 15th. I hope that this will become a hearty blog full of recommendations and reviews of Hispanic literature.

I'd like to start off with one of my most favorite books: The Tequila Worm by Viola Canales. Reading this book, and her previous book, Orange Candy Slices and Other Secret Tales, was like stepping into my own past. Sofia's family, her relationships with them and her fears and concerns for her future, are all things that I can heavily relate to. The descriptions - everything from the cascarones to the sugar skulls to the relationship between Sofia and her father - are written beautifully.

The climax and ending of this book caught me completely by surprise. Reading the beginning I could not imagine what would happen, I never would have thought it. But then, life is this way sometimes. This is a very heartbreaking book that you will not easily get over, but with a beautiful message of hope and endurance. I can see why it won the Pura Belpre award; I only wish Viola Canales would write another. 

Further: Scholastic.com

Mini Easter Baskets

I got the idea to create these baskets from the Easter Animal Self-Adhesive Basket Craft Kit at Oriental Trading. We had some cardboard circles that made great bodies for the bunnies and chicks. The handle is made out of pipe cleaner and the rest out of construction paper. All that was needed to put the kit together was tape, a glue stick, and a marker to decorate the bunny's face. For extra fun, a cotton ball can be used for the bunny's tail.

Presidents' Day Activities

These are just some of the many creative activities that can be done for Presidents' Day.

You can use construction paper to make a George Washington hat that can be decorated with markers or cutout stars. Artists Helping Children has a great and easy tutorial on how to make these hats. Slightly Nerdy Sometimes Cool also has instructions, complete with a cute plush dog wearing a hat.

The Lincoln hat can be made in a variety of ways and with different materials. The one shown here was made with construction paper, a toilet paper roll, and yarn. The toilet paper roll was cut so it was about three inches tall. Two black circle cutouts with tabs were made so that the tabs could be taped to the toilet paper roll. The roll was then covered with a piece of construction paper about 3" wide by 6" long. The bottom was then taped to a larger black construction paper circle. I hole-punched the circle and added string so that the children would be able to wear this adorable hat.

Enchanted Learning has a great instruction page for this hat that includes images and is very helpful. 

If you don't have too much time to create this Lincoln top hat, there are many other activities you can create to celebrate this day. You can create a Lincoln Log Cabin to celebrate and remember Lincoln's upbringing, and this Lincoln Penny Pendant is also a really creative idea. You can create a Washington pendant, or even a simple star pendant with multiple or single stars. The possibilities are endless!

Have a Presidential Day!

Two Great Books for St. Valentine's Day

If you're looking for some books for St. Valentine's Day, look no further. These two books have beautiful stories with breathtaking artwork, and would complement each other wonderfully.

Henry in Love by Peter McCarty

Snowy Valentine by David Petersen

Valentine's Day Ideas

One of the ideas I have always had for Valentine's Day is the creation of a Valentine Mailbox utilizing either a shoe box or a Kleenex box (especially as Kleenex boxes already have built-in slits for Valentine cards to go through). The book Queen of Hearts by Mary Engelbreit gave me some of the ideas for the Valentine mailbox. If you haven't read it, please do! It's one of the best Valentine picture books I've come across, and it introduced me to Mary Engelbreit. I have now fallen in love with her dog and Scottie illustrations.

Ask for donations of Kleenex boxes early to make sure you have a good amount for the number of children you expect at your St. Valentine's Day event. You can cover the boxes with construction paper beforehand, or allow the children to cover them on their own. Use die cuts to create shapes such as hearts, castles, fairies, dragons, and other Valentine-related shapes. These can be used to decorate the box. The children can then use the box as a mailbox for all of their Valentine cards.

I have not yet managed to collect the 30 boxes I was hoping to have by Valentine's Day, so I came up with a quick and easy craft that children could do if there were not enough boxes. As it turns out, I love this craft just as much, and I'm not sure which of the two is my favorite. This craft consists of cutting the top of a brown paper bag about an inch or so, and decorating it with a Cat, Dog, or Giraffe template and heart. I found this adorable idea over at Craft of the Day, a daily craft blog from the makers of The Best Kids Book Site. There is also a very cute Panda Bear template you can use as well.

You can also check out this adorable Dog Box for Valentine Cards from DLTK.

And finally, this last craft was originally from Family Fun (by Disney, which is now Spoonful, I believe). You take the Conversation Hearts by Brachs or Sweethearts (there are also some small Valentine tattoos at the stores that would work), and you cover them with construction paper and an iPod template to create the illusion that it is an iPod. You can pretty much use any candy, however. There was a box of 30 Twizzlers and Jolly Ranchers (15 of each) that was much cheaper than buying conversation hearts, and that is what I decided to use. The candies were covered with construction paper and tape, and the iPod template was glued on the front. The adorable iPod template was incredibly hard to find, especially with the moving around on the Family Fun crafts site to the Spoonful site, but I was able to find it. I can't find the exact link I used, but I did find it available for download on this site. The iPod (or iLove) shows Valentine songs, but you can edit the template to add your own songs. For this craft, I added the following book titles: Bunnicula, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Goosebumps, and Harry Potter. 

You can see Reese's candy because you can add two strings to the iLove and attach one Reese's peanut butter cup (small) to each string to create headphones! Very cute indeed.

You can visit these websites to see how others have created Valentine iPods.

U Create Crafts

Y2K Mom

MeckMom

Mom's Crafty Space