Virtual Book Club for Kids: The Amazing Pig by Paul Galdone

It is time for the Virtual Book Club for Kids!! This month the featured author is Paul Galdone. Since so many of his books are classic tales, I considered doing Cinderella and counting it as my Fairy Tales in Different Cultures, but to be very honest, I couldn't think of a fun craft or activity to do that we haven't already done with some form of Cinderella. So we decided to feature The Amazing Pig.

For those that do not know about the Virtual Book Club for Kids, a group of blogs bring you a club where each month an author is chosen for us all to feature a book of our choice from that author. Then we have a blog hop where anyone can link up a craft or activity to go with a book by the chosen author for the month. The blogs that bring you the Virtual Book Club for Kids are:
Toddler Approved- The Educators' Spin On It- Rainy Day Mum- 3 Dinosaurs- Learn~Play~Imagine - Crafty Moms Share - Reading Confetti- Inspiration Laboratories - Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas - Kids Yoga Stories - Enchanted Homeschooling Mom- Ready-Set-Read - Boy Mama Teacher Mama - PlayDrMom - Fantastic Fun and Learning - Growing Book by Book- Royal Baloo - The Outlaw Mom® Blog - Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Teach Preschool - Mama Smiles - Coffee Cups and Crayons - Juggling With Kids - Here Come the Girls-

The Amazing Pig is a Hungarian folk tale. A king proclaims that whoever can tell him something he does not believe can marry his beautiful daughter. The son of a peasant decides to have a try at it. When he gets to the castle he joins the long line of noblemen, princes and knights. He watches many of them leaving upset. When it is his turn the peasant's son tells the king about his family's amazing pig. He tells him how it lays eggs and his father cuts bacon from it every day. He continues his story how the pig goes to the tailor and buys the family's clothes with coins he picked up on the road. The story goes on and on and the king keeps saying, "I believe you," until the peasant's son says he hired the king's grandfather to be a swineherd. Since the king says it cannot be true, the peasant's son marries the beautiful princess. They live very happily and then the peasant's son inherits the kingdom. The people of the kingdom say he was the wisest and most honest king. They believed everything he told them except the story of the pig.

To go with this book, I thought we would make a pig craft. I found a simple one made of hearts at DLTK Kids, Heart Pig Paper Craft. I thought one made of hearts was perfect for the week of Valentine's Day. I printed out the template in color and in black and white, however Hazel had a busy weekend and did not finish coloring the black and white one. Here is our finished color one. We somehow lost one of the feet, so I cut out another heart from pink paper.

I also did some worksheet type activities. The first is a page of different activities and the child needs to determine if it is a true activity for a pig or a false one. I mostly used pictures from Microsoft Word Clip Art and they had pigs doing all sorts of different things. Then the letter of the week last week and this week in Hazel's class is P, so I made up one where she had to read words beginning with p and then a table of pictures and words where she looked for what rhymed with pig. If you would like a copy of the worksheets you can get them here.

Now I also want to share with you that besides being Valentine's Day, Friday is also International Book Giving Day. Since the purpose of the Virtual Book Club for Kids is to introduce new authors to children and to get them to read more, I thought this was the perfect time to share the International Book Giving Day. It is a day to give a child a book or donate a book to a library, classroom or charity. We are giving Hazel a book, a book to her classroom, a book to our public library and our public library has put together a book drive for an organization that provides books to children through doctor's offices and we bought a bunch for that as well. I hope you will join us in giving children books on Friday!

Now for the blog hop!! If you have done any activities or crafts to go along with a Paul Galdone book, come share it here and also come check out all the amazing ideas others have done with his books.