Virtual Book Club for Kids: Ava's Poppy by Marcus Pfister

It is time for Virtual Book Club for Kids again! For those that do not know about Virtual Book Club for Kids, I have joined with an amazing group of bloggers to present books from a selected author each month. We then host a blog hop for anyone to add a post with an activity or craft to go with a book by our selected author. This month's author is Marcus Pfister. The amazing blogs that bring you this fun book club 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-

 This month we have decided to feature Ava's Poppy. It may be my strong desire for spring to hurry up and get here and the fact that I cannot wait for some spring flowers and for the green grass. Ok, really I cannot wait to see anything except the snow and dirt on the snow. Ava's Poppy is about a young girl, Ava, who notices a red poppy in a field. It is easy to notice since it is the only red thing in a green field. Ava visits the poppy every day and takes care of it. However one day the poppy loses its petals and then the stem and pod turn brown. Ava buries the stem and pod and marks the place her friend once grew with a circle of rocks. As the snow falls in winter Ava thinks about her friend and knows the poppy would not have survived the winter. When spring finally comes she goes out and sees a new poppy growing in the place of her old friend.

For this book, we did a simple poppy craft. Hazel always loves to make paper flowers and is often asking me to make them with her. After looking for some poppy crafts I decided to try ones with cupcake liners. (We couldn't find our coffee filters for the ones we saw on-line.) I happened to take a book out of the library called Paper Blooms: 25 Extraordinary Flowers to Make for Weddings, Celebrations & More by Jeffrey Rudell. I did not have the special paper suggested in the book and did not feel like cutting out tissue paper circles, so we used white cupcake liners and adapted our flower to what we had.

• To start we painted the cupcake liners with water color paints. I did red and Hazel chose different colors. We tried to do about five for each flower though four also worked fine.
• After they dried I cut out three small rounded triangles from the edges.
• Next we took a strip of yellowish green paper and a green pipe cleaner. With some glue to hold the pipe cleaner and paper together, I folded the paper over the pipe cleaner and rolled the paper around it to make the pod part of the stem. Next we took a small piece of black paper and cut fringes and glued that around the pod. 
• Finally we poked the pipe cleaners through the center of the painted cupcake liners and brought them up to the top. There we separated them and crinkled them to get the shape of a poppy.

I also happened to find simple poppy kits in the Dollar Spot at Target. I bought a couple for us to grow our own poppies.

Now I cannot discuss Marcus Pfister books without talking about Rainbow Fish. It happens that the craft at the library this past week was making a fish and Hazel made a rainbow fish.

For some other Rainbow Fish crafts and ideas you can look at my Gone Fishin' and My Adventures in Needle Felting posts and of course check out the great ideas below from other bloggers!!