How the story grows…

In White Rabbit’s Color Book by Alan Baker, an adorable realistic looking rabbit acts in a very unrabbit-like way when she comes across three big tubs of paint. First, she hops into the sunshine yellow tub and becomes a beautiful bright yellow. The red looks enticing too, so in she hops. Look at that! The rabbit has become orange.

After a quick shower, she begins experimenting with the other primary colors. This very cute, very simple picture book is a perfect beginning lesson in primary and secondary colors.

Of course, after reading, who could resist breaking out the paints and doing a little experimenting of your own? You wouldn’t want to just take white rabbit’s word for it without trying it out yourself! How much of each primary color do you need to add? What happens if you keep adding more yellow to that blue?

Use cotton swabs for easy clean-up and for promoting pre-writing skills. They’re perfect for exercising the pincer grip muscles needed to grip a pencil.

While you’re at it, check out Alan Baker’s other rabbit books. Gray Rabbit’s Odd One Out is another favorite of mine.

Being a very particular sort of pig, Henry likes organization. “A place for everything and everything in its place” he says.

Henry thinks the barnyard needs some order, so he decides to draw a map. That way everyone could know what belongs where. Taking his drawing with him, he travels around the barnyard drawing each building or landmark and the animal that belongs with it. The sheep belong next to the wool shed, Abigail the cow belongs by the tree, Mr. Brown the horse is drawn by his stable, and the chickens belong by the square coop.

 
However, as Henry wanders around the barnyard, all the animals are so interested in his map that they follow him. In the end, all the animals look back at the farm and are dismayed because they aren’t in their places! Away they race with Henry’s map, falling back into their places along the way. At last, when Henry reaches his sty and goes inside, he smiles. Everything is back in place!

 
This book provides a great opportunity for practicing some beginning map skills.

 I used the Cat in the Hat mapping tool from pbskids.org to make a simple printable map of a child’s room. A school-aged child can do this independently, or a preschooler can do this with some guidance. Of course, you can always use pencil and paper and draw out your map like Henry did.

After printing out the map, I placed some small animal stickers on various pieces of furniture on the paper. Have your child take a corresponding stuffed animal, look at the map, and decide where each animal belongs.

This activity helps children learn visual literacy skills by not only identifying an image, but studying and evaluating what that image represents. Interpreting images is an important aspect of effective communication. That, and working with simple maps is just plain fun!

This simple story by Leo Lionni provides a perfect opportunity for an easy Spring craft.

In this story, a pencil and a pair of scissors decided to make some rabbits.  First the pencil drew a rabbit, then the scissors made one out of scraps of brightly colored paper.  After dining on handcrafted carrots, the two new friends went to sleep with their stomachs full.

After waking up hungry again, they come upon a real carrot.  (The shadow proves it’s real.)  Imagine their surprise when, after eating the real carrot, the pencil rabbit and the scrap paper rabbit become real too!

I found some beautiful scrapbook paper half-off at the store yesterday, and decided to make some rabbits of my own.  After tracing over the illustration in the book with plain white paper, I cut out the patterns to trace onto the colorful paper.  It was fun mixing up the patterns to make new rabbits.  They looked more real after adding some cute googly eyes!

For the older children, this craft provides great practice for fine motor skills.  For the younger ones, cut out the pieces yourself and let them use their creativity to combine the patterned paper in their own way.

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Happy, hoppy Spring!