Book Focus:  

Chicken Soup with Rice

and

Caps for Sale

Today, we chose two books, and built all of our activities around them. In the morning, we did Chicken Soup with Rice, by Maurice Sendak, finishing up by making soup. In the afternoon, we read Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobodkina. Crafts, pretend play, and cooking made this a very fun day. 

Chicken Soup with Rice

• Craft: Decorate soup bowls. Materials: paper bowls, markers, glitter glue...whatever else your toddler hauls out of the craft supply box...

• Pretend play: Pour some dry rice into a bowl, then place inside a box to minimize mess (but not eliminate it- we're still playing with a toddler, here). Add other bowls, spoons, etc. The toddler can then "cook" chicken soup with rice. Evie cooked for a while, then started serving up the soup to myself, and several stuffed animals. She also went to her play kitchen to get some toy veggies, and added these to her soup. 

• Dramatic reading: As we read the book again, Evie acted out each page, using whatever props she could find around the playroom. For example, for the page about paddling down the nile, a large stuffed horse served for a crocodile for her to ride, and a toy umbrella became her paddle. She also started to recite a few of the lines with me. I told her which month was her birth month, and also her brother's and daddy's. 

• Cooking: Evie made chicken noodle soup with daddy, and they added some rice to it. Evie loves to watch daddy cook, and she chewed on a few of the vegetables as he was chopping them up. It was very yummy, and Evie loved it. 

Caps for Sale

• Craft: Peddler art. Cut out paper hats, and a face and mustache. Draw eyes and eyebrows on the face. Paste the face onto a piece of paper, then paste all of the caps on top of the head in a tall tower. 
• Activity: Find as many hats in your house as you can. Stack them on toddler's head, then see how far they can walk while balancing them. 
• Dramatic reading: Toddler is the peddler, you are the tree. Baby brother was a monkey in the tree. Toddler acted out everything the peddler did, and repeated all of his lines. I read the story as though there was a female peddler named Evie. We used the hats from the balancing activity as props. Evie had fun stomping her feet, shouting out her lines, and throwing the hat on the ground.