Choosing Picture Book Explorers for Winter

If you want to fit your explorations to fit with the seasons of the year, the following are based on books which have a particular connection with winter in the story.

Picture Book Explorers ~ The Mousehole Cat
features a winter storm and ends on Christmas Eve.
To complete this cross-curricular unit study you will need a copy of The Mousehole Cat
 and, among other things, some Coloured Felt and some glitter.

Picture Book Explorers ~ Greyfriars Bobby
features a snowy scene and an old man getting ill from being too long out in the cold.
The old man dies and this could be a sensitive subject for younger children.
To complete this cross-curricular unit study, You will need a copy of Greyfriars Bobby
and, among other things, some watercolour paints.

 

Either of these two Picture Book Explorers would fit in well with a project about winter. The Mousehole Cat even includes Christmas traditions specific to the area in which the story is set.

Happy Exploring!

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Christmas is Coming

I'm very busy preparing the next Picture Book Explorers study pack which will be out by the end of the month. It will have a Christmas theme and will be particularly significant to this year. More news to follow :)

I'm going to be running a Christmas Activity Advent calendar on this blog with links to crafts and activities relevant to the season, so please remember to come back each day from 1st December. You might want to start saving toilet roll tubes and digging out last year's Christmas cards now ;)

One of our family traditions is to make an "Advent Calendar of Books" which is essentially a pile of 24 books with a Christmas theme :) Many people use this idea and some even wrap the books individually, one parcel to be opened each day during advent. We don't go quite that far. My daughter decides on  the order, numbers them and puts them in a basket. If I have any activities to accompany the book, they go in the basket too.

Some of our favourites are How the Grinch Stole Christmas! , The Gift of the Magi and Twas the Night Before Christmas which we always read on Christmas Eve as well as revisiting the lapbook we made for it years ago. I like to add a few new books to the selection every year. This helps to ensure that they still have age appropriate as they get older, as well as being able to read old favourites that rekindle the sense of wonder from when they were younger. This Advent, we are also reading A Christmas Carol for our book group, so I'll ask my daughter to put that book at the beginning of the Advent pile :)

My children are starting to get pretty excited about Christmas, even though I think it is still a little early yet. Mind you, tomorrow is Stir Up Sunday, so I think I'd better start getting  my head round it quickly.

I'd love some new suggestions of titles to add to our book Advent Calendar. What are your family's favourite Christmas books?

Lake Windermere Song :)

Here's a little something to add to your home-learning  journey with Picture Book Explorers ~ The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck.