stART: The Bad-Tempered Ladybird

For stART this week Andy and I read The Bad-Tempered Ladybird by Eric Carle. This gorgeous book was part of Andy's birthday present from his Gran.



"The bad-tempered ladybird picks fights with every animal it meets, but soon learns the importance of friends. In this humorous story, Eric Carle explores the concepts of size and time through brightly coloured pictures."

The animals he meets each have their own flap similar to The Very Hungry Caterpillar book also by Eric Carle. Each flap has a clock at the top with the time which he meets the animal which is great for older kids.


So I printed out the templates for this ladybird craft and Andy coloured it in with red and black...


He also glued some eyes onto the face and I covered a cd with red construction paper for the base of the ladybird...


Then Andy glued on the wings, face and black dots...


The finished project...


To see what others have done for stART visit A Mommy's Adventures.

stART: The Thunderstruck Stork

For stART this week we read The Thunderstruck Stork by David J. Olson. It's about a stork that has an accident and does his work all wrong by delivering the wrong babies to the wrong parents e.g. the frog parents receive an elephant baby, the sparrows receive a pig. But when he wants to correct his errors after his mind being set right through being struck by lightning he realizes the families he made love each other and were perfect. It's a captivating story as the text rhymes in a fun way and Andy and I had a great many laughs over who receives what baby.

So Andy cut up some feathers...


Glued them onto a printed out stork...


Glued on an eye and colored in...


And here is his finished stork... (He says those words - the squiggly lines - says "Webster the stork".


Here's the cover of the book...


And one of the delightful illustrations (the sparrow parents trying to help their piglet to fly)...


To see other stART books and projects go to A Mommy's Adventures.

Book Fan 'Friday' - Big and Busy Ocean

Our book for last week's Book Fan Friday (which can be posted on any day but which I will try and do on Fridays) is Big and Busy Oceans by Priddy Books. This is an amazing book Andy got as a gift from his Gran. It's written in a 'interesting facts style' as apposed to a story like, 'Once upon a time... to... The End', but it's written in such a way that Andy sits through this book from cover to cover not only listening but asking a gazillion 'interesting' questions. It has amazing flaps, pop-ups and a wheel that gives the book just that much more appeal and depth. It's aged 5+ but Andy is 3 and as I said VERY much interested. Here are some pics...

The front cover...



The back cover...


One of the pages...


Another page...


Close-up of some pop-ups...

To see what others have done for Book Fan Friday visit Three A's and a C.

Great Posty Day

Andy received two parcels today! The first was from his two friends, Michaela and Zoe, in Middleburg who sent him an adorable set of farm animal fridge magnets that you mold and paint yourself. We did the first step this afternoon because it has to set for 24 hours and he was very excited!


The second was a parcel from Aunty Lisa, Uncle Simon and Juliet in London. It's a beautiful Aesop's Fables book...


Which he put us to reading straight away...


A BIG THANK YOU to Jerushia, Michaela, Zoe, Lisa, Simon and Juliet. You really made Andy's day!