This month's Virtual Book Club for Kids is featuring activities, projects, crafts, etc. inspired by Eric Carle's wonderful book, The Very Quiet Cricket!
We actually didn't have this book already, so we were so excited to get the board book version in the mail a few weeks ago! Even though my preschooler is gentle with books, the toddler is not, so we love board books!
This month we are co-hosting Virtual Book Club with The Educator's Spin On It, so head on over to their site to check out the absolutely amazing buggy activities that they are sharing! You will probably want to pin every picture and add it to your summer "must-do" list!
I haven't been feeling very crafty lately, so we decided that this month we were going to get moving with The Very Quiet Cricket! We had a lot of fun learning some new words while we spun, scraped, buzzed, danced, etc. all around our house.
Here are the two activities we came up with...
1. Very Quiet Cricket Movement Cards
Materials Needed: markers, printouts of these simple story sequence cards from Making Learning Fun, paper strips, colored cardstock, a copy of The Very Quiet Cricket, and double sided tape.
Directions to create movement cards:
1. Tape one story sequence card scene to each piece of cardstock.
2. Read the book and match the story sequence card to the book.
3. Listen for movement words that go along with each sequence card and write them down on the paper strips.
4. Tape the paper strips onto the corresponding story sequence card.
5. Put the cardstock story sequence cards in order and label them #1-9.
Directions to play the movement card game:
1. Lay the cards all over the floor (you can tape them down or just lay them on carpet)
2. Read the story of The Quiet Cricket aloud slowly while your child tries to find each card as you read the corresponding page.
3. Encourage your child to do the movement or action on each card when he finds it. We did the movements all together and had a great time acting goofy. Our favorites were buzzing and spinning.
4. As you finish reading the story, collect the story sequence cards and place them in order. Have your child tell the story of The Very Quiet Cricket in his own words.
We loved all of the bugs that were included in this book! We could spend several weeks just studying each of them... and might, later this summer!
2. The Very Quiet Cricket Bug Olympics
With the Summer Olympics fast approaching, we thought it would be fun to create our own bug olympics! Here are the simple activities we came up with that related to each of the bugs in the book! These olympic events aren't really for competition but are a great way to have fun moving with your kids! Make sure you join in too!
Olympic Events:
Locust twirls
Spin from one end of the room to the other end of the room as fast as you can. Or, if you do this outside, spin from one side of the lawn to the other. Count while you spin and see if you can get across the room faster and faster each time.
Praying Mantis Scissor Kicks
These are scissor kicks. Do a set of 10, sit up and rest, and then do another set of 10.
Worm Crawl
The worm crawled through the apple and munched his way out. Set up a tunnel using kitchen chairs or patio chairs that your child can crawl under/over. You could even create a tunnel using blankets... or if you want to get really creative, make a worm crawl obstacle course! Make sure to remind your little worms to munch as they try and crawl through their tunnels!
Spittle Bug Swimming
Get your arms moving by swimming across the room or the lawn. Do freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke or whatever you want with your arms while you legs help you run. See if you can go 5 laps before you need to go back to slurping and relaxing in the sea of froth.
Clinging Cicada
Grab some big sticks or branches (or a broom) and do 20 broomstick twists (demonstrated here). Make sure you cling to the branches just like the cicada did!
Bumble Bee Arm Flaps
Do 20 bumble bee arms flaps with your arms straight out and palms down. You can fly across the room and race other bees or just fly around the room. Then flip your arms over and do 20 bumble bee arm flaps with your palms up!
Gliding Dragonflies
Glide (or slide) in a circle around your yard or inside your house. Make the circles bigger and smaller. Change directions and speeds. See how quietly you can move.
Mosquito Dance Contest
Put on your favorite dancing tunes and rock out to the music! The mosquitos loved to buzz, so you could also buzz or sing along to the music while you move.
Luna Moth Toss
Create a simple paper airplane and have a luna moth toss from the highest spots in your house or yard. The luna moth sailed quietly through the night, so don't let your airplanes make a peep!
Once you've gone through all of the events... take a rest and start all over again!
Are you excited for the Bug Olympics? You can download our Bug Olympics cards here if you want to print out each of the events and have them easily accessible.
If you participated in book club this month and have a Very Quiet Cricket blog post to share with us, please link it up in the linky below! Please make sure to only link up Very Quiet Cricket related posts. If you have more than one to share, you are welcome to share them, but limit your links to two. Blog posts should share about your book club experience and a learning activity, craft, or related project you did! I can't wait to see what you link up!
If your post is not Very Quiet Cricket themed or you link more than two posts, I will unfortunately have to delete your extra/irrelevant posts!
I will be adding the posts below to our Virtual Book Club Pinterest Board along with sharing them over on Toddler Approved's Facebook page. I recommend you visit other blogs participating in the link up, leave a comment, and share the fabulous posts you discover too!
If you would like to participate in the blog hop and don't already have the blog hop linky code to put at the bottom of your blog, email me at toddlerapproved (at) gmail (dot) com and I will send you the HTML.
I do agree – I work with the coaches at my local cricket ball, and the hard ball is always a challenge for the youngsters. We use soft ball games to get them used to hitting and catching.
OOOH! Love it! Thanks for sharing! Now we will be doing a 'Very Quiet Cricket' day like we di a 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' day! I love Eric Carle and his work is so inspiring to children!
Ooohhh! Love it! Thanks so much for sharing! I will be doing a 'Very Quiet Cricket' day just likewe did a 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' day!
Bug Olymipics, this is so much fun and a full body buggy experience. I can see some wings being added to the play too! Thanks Kristina for inviting us to host with you this month. Such a neat book with so many activities to create and do with the kids this summer!
We love movement activities in our house, so this is perfect for us! And a perfect indoor game for us to get the wriggles out this summer since we are stuck inside for most of it because of the heat.
Though I love the book, I was struggling to come up with activity ideas — look at all these great ones. I love the movement book. This is really wonderful!!
Zel would love the movement game. One of his favorite books is "Shake a Leg" and he loves to do all the motions. Thanks for the great idea on how to incorporate movement into this story!
P.S. We read the book again today and stopped after each page and copied the bugs. Zel had so much fun!
I LOVE it! So much fun! We will definitely be doing this! Thanks so much for sharing this and coordinating the Virtual Book Club for kids!
Ohhh what fun – I will have to print out the bug olympics for some fun in the lead up to the games as well.