Readathon 2012 Week 1 -- Animal Themed Books

We are participating in MeMe Tales Readathon 2012. It is a six-week program where you can receive free electronic books for a week each week based on the theme of the week. This week is the first week and the theme is animal themed books. We were able to read The Five Little Ducklings, The Donkey and The Wolf and The Lion and The Mouse.

We really enjoyed The Five Little Ducklings and The Lion and The Mouse. Of course Jerry Pinkney's version of the Lion and Mouse is one of our favorite books so that helped. Hazel was a bit scared of the wolf in The Donkey and the Wolf.

With this program,  the parent receives an email with some curriculum ideas and other resources including a certificate for each week, stickers and a progress sheet for the stickers. Most of these resources are also available at MeMe Tales Blog and there is a link party to share your animal themed crafts.

Well after reading the stories and looking at some of the ideas we decided to make some pictures to go with two of the books. The most obvious is to use the game pieces from our Duck Duck 1-2-3 game and re-enact the story of The Five Little Ducklings. And of course the game itself would be a nice connection since the mother ducks have to go gather their ducklings from around the board and bring them to the duck party in the center of the board.

Then we got a bit creative and took a hint from the ideas at Meme Tales and made some fingerprint animals. First we did the lion and mouse. Hazel used her thumbprint to make a blue mouse. Then we used my thumbprint for the lion's face and Hazel's fingers around it for the mane. I used my thumb a bit more to make a body as well.

The Lion and The Mouse

Then we used our duck stamp as the mother duck and Hazel's fingerprints as the ducklings. We did the whole story out. Here are a few pages. Hazel did not always get which way her fingerprints should go.

Some of our favorite animal-themed books:

Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes (August author for the Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids)

Lion and Mouse by Jerry Pinkney (wordless except for sounds)

Just about anything by Beatrix Potter

The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Anderson

The Little Red Hen by Diane Muldrow (Little Golden Books)

I am a Bunny by Ole Risom

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