Thursday, March 31, 2011

Painting Like Birds

Today I hosted a story hour at a local coffee shop.  I have been hosting this coffee shop story hour for just over a year now and I really enjoy doing it.  I'm a bit sad that I will only have one more story hour (the end of April; if you are local, contact me for details) before I take a break for a while.  R is graduating from preschool in May and then it will be summer and then we will have a new baby, so I had to take a break from hosting.  I hope that the coffee shop will find someone to take over the story hour, and I also hope to do it again in the future.

Our story hour theme this month was birds.  We began by reading three books:

Seven Hungry Babies by Candace Fleming begins with seven eggs hatching one spring morning.  All seven of the baby birds open their mouths wide and cry for food.  Mama bird works hard to get food for each of them, and once she finally manages to get them all fed and napping in the nest, they wake up crying for food again.  The exhausted Mama bird says, "It's Daddy's turn to fly." and we see an illustration of the Daddy bird resting on a branch.  I thought the whole book was cute, but the end really made me laugh!

Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard is the story of a bird who wakes up grumpy, and because he is too grumpy to fly, he decides to walk.  Along the way, other animals join Bird on his walk and eventually he forgets all about being grumpy.  I think this is a great book for curing a case of the grumpies!

Our last story hour book was Birds by Kevin Henkes.  I love anything and everything by Kevin Henkes, and this is one of our favorite books.  We have used it more than once for book projects and it's a book that we like to read over and over again.  It's simply about birds and it's a fun way to work on colors, sizes, and more.

As you know, birds do not have hands and fingers, so we had to use our imagination to think about how birds would paint.  I have done this activity with my own children several times, and it is inspired by a page in the Kevin Henkes book mentioned above.  With the sky (blue construction paper) as a canvas, I told the little birds (children, there were no real birds in attendance at the story hour) to dip their feathers (craft feathers) in paint and go crazy.






R can never resist putting her fingers in the paint, and before I knew it every child at her table was finger painting (actually it was more like whole hand painting).



It's okay though, they had fun and enjoyed creating their art.  That is all that matters.

Thank you to all of my little friends who listen so well and always create works of art.  A huge thank you to the moms, grandmas, and caretakers who bring their children and help me clean up!  Last, but not least, a super huge thank you to Cuppers Cafe for hosting us each month and for providing free drinks and cookies for all of the children!

I am linking this post to stArt (story + art = a great start) at A Mommy's Adventures.  Click on over there to find more art projects inspired by books.
   

9 comments:

MaryAnne said...

This story hour you run sounds so neat! Too bad we're not close enough to just run over!

Your bird craft is really a fun activity for the kids, and we love that Birds book by Kevin Henkes!

MaryAnne said...

This story hour you run sounds so neat! Too bad we're not close enough to just run over!

Your bird craft is really a fun activity for the kids, and we love that Birds book by Kevin Henkes!

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I LOVE your story hour posts. It's a great idea to let the children paint with feathers. It made me want to play with feathers too.

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

Grumpy Bird is one of my favorites. I just love his grumpy little face!

Brimful Curiosities said...

When I saw the title of your post, I was nearly 100% sure you were probably going to talk about Henkes' book. Did you know his wife illustrated his Birds book?

Chelsea said...

We read "Seven Hungry Babies" earlier this year and really enjoyed it as well. It is super cute!

Jenny said...

What an awesome idea to paint with feathers! Those books look great too!

Ticia said...

My kids rejected my attempt to get them to paint with flowers. But, they were all about the painting with their hands, or painting their hands.

Susana said...

These bird books look great! Two of them are at our library so I requested them--thank you!

I know you loved that story hour, but I hope you'll enjoy your break from it too. You planned some wonderful activities for the kids there and I know you will be missed!