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Virtual Book Club for Kids: Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle


 Disclosure: I was sent the seahorse craft kit to review free of charge from Oriental Trading. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I added links to the particular products for your convenience, but not for any compensation. 




This month we chose to share Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle for Virtual Book Club for Kids. Eric Carle has so many fun books out there, but we loved the translucent pages in Mister Seahorse where the seahorse did not see some sea creature on his adventure. Hazel had to turn all those pages and loved seeing what was hidden and when it was turned hiding Mister Seahorse. This story is about Mr. Seahorse's travels after taking Mrs. Seahorse's eggs in his brood pouch. He travels through the ocean running into more soon-to-be and new fathers. He always has a positive response to their upcoming fatherhood or new fatherhood and never tells any of them he is caring his eggs. Then the book ends with the eggs hatching and the baby seahorses swimming away (except one who wants to go back in Daddy's pouch, but Daddy is loving and firm and sends him out on his own).  
When browsing through Oriental Trading's summer crafts, I came upon this adorable seahorse craft kit. I thought it would be a perfect craft to go with this book and added it to my product review list. These kits are fun and easy. The only problem we had was keeping the pom pom eyes on. I found a little craft glue held them better than the adhesive on the foam. Each kit includes a stamp pad for fingerprints for the folded paper fins, the foam seahorse, gems, pom poms and googly eyes and all are self-adhesive (but some glue helps). Since we were making all twelve (though one of our purple seahorses is now missing), we mixed up the color combinations by opening each package and trading out the sparkly gems. 
Since we had twelve, well eleven, seahorses we decided they could be the babies and we would make a Mister Seahorse and put them all into a mobile. I enlarged one seahorse on my printer by 200% and cut it out of yellow foam. Then I found a piece of yellow paper and used it for the fins. I did not bother with fingerprints since it was already polka-dot paper. I found some gems we had and yellow pom poms and googly eyes. Hazel helped decorate Mister Seahorse as well and wants to make Mrs. Seahorse next. I then punched holes in all of them and used pipe cleaners to make the mobile base. I used a regular hole punch for the hole the pipe cleaners go through on Mister Seahorse and a small knitting needle for the holes the thread went through. 
I arranged them in a declining spiral so they look like they are swimming away from Mister Seahorse. Hazel wants to hang it in her room. Now to find a place since she has about five mobiles and hanging lights in there already. 

Now for a bit about Virtual Book Club for Kids. Each month we host a blog hop about the author picked for the month. Each blogger chooses a book by that author and does something with it (craft, activity, lesson, etc.) and writes a post about it. Then we open the blog hop with all of our posts and it is open to everyone to share a post or more about a book by that month's author. This month the author is Eric Carle. The hosts of this amazing book club are:
Please be sure to stop by and check out their great Eric Carle posts as well! Now for the blog hop (please remember Eric Carle book themed posts only!):

For more crafts and activities to go with books check out:
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