Disclosure:Candlewick Press gave me a copies of these book free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own, and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation. Today I am going to share two fun books about bugs. These books are so fun with a special time for us since Hazel's class has been focusing on bugs this year. The first book is Among a Thousand Fireflies by Helen Frost and photographs by Rick Lieder.
The author for September in the Virtual Book Club for Kids is Bill Martin, Jr. For those that do not know about the Virtual Book Club for Kids, each month a group of bloggers pick one author to feature on all of our blogs and host a blog hop. Each blogger picks one (or sometimes two) book by that author and does an activity or craft with it and posts about it. Then we open up the blog hop to anyone else who would like to share a book by the author of the month and an activity to go with it. The Virutal Book Club for Kids is brought to you by the following group of bloggers:
Now for our third and final installment of firefly crafts at least for this summer. If you missed the first two you can check them out here: Part 1 and Part 2. For part 3 we were inspired by Tippytoe Crafts. We had a huge thunderstorm so I couldn't go check them out before we started so we did them a bit from memory. And we made a few changes. First Hazel painted the ends of spoons with glow-in-the-dark paint.
After letting the paint dry, I cut out shapes from black construction paper. Had I looked at Tippytoe Crafts I would have realized it would be easier to do several shapes, but I did not. We glued them onto the spoons and then added googly eyes and pipe cleaner antennae. On some we added six pipe cleaner legs as well.
Next we used a glow stick. I found glow stick necklaces that are thicker and just have a top with a string attached. I thought these would be perfect since I didn't like the glow coming through the materials on Part 2. We basically did the same thing but glued the black construction paper onto the glow stick. We let the glue dry longer before adding everything else since the glow stick is heavier and bigger. We added legs and eyes and antennae and then hung it in Hazel's house/Horsey's shed depending on what she wants to use it for (today it was a school and a restaurant as well).
Our final ones are similar to Tippytoe Crafts first ones. However Hazel was not too interested in crafting at this point so we did not use the tissue paper to make the tails. I used a coffee filter and her yellow and green dot markers. Glued that to the black paper and cut out the shape.
We have been having a few hot days here in New England. Well today wasn't but the previous few have been. To cool off we decided to make some popsicles. This is the first year that Hazel has really liked a popsicle, but she seems to love them, so I figured we would make some with less sugar. I had bought popsicle molds previously and just never used them.
Our first attempt was just simply watermelon. We put some watermelon pieces in the food processor. Hazel pureed them and then I put them in a measuring cup so she could pour it into the molds.
Then we put them in the freezer. Hazel could not wait to try them, but she had to wait until the next morning. Yes, I let her have a popsicle this morning. I figured I would feed her watermelon in the morning and these popsicles are just frozen watermelon. She enjoyed it, but did not eat it all.
The second flavor we tried was with fresh blueberries, fresh strawberries and plain, non-fat Greek yogurt. Sorry I didn't get many pictures of these, but Hazel and our babysitter enjoyed them this afternoon. Again Hazel did not eat it all, but her eating was very off today. To make them we put some blueberries, cut strawberries and yogurt into the food processor. Hazel pureed them and then I put them in the measuring cup so she could pour them into the mold. Then they went into the freezer.
Since this mold only made two, I ate the leftover yogurt mixture. Our babysitter said the popsicle was really good. So these are our new summer treats without all the added sugar. Such a fun way to keep cool!
Did you check out our firefly paintings and the books we have been reading last week? As promised here are some more firefly crafts that we have been trying. This time we used some glow sticks to give our fireflies their light.
The first was inspired by somewhere on-line, but I cannot seem to find where again. I thought it was Family Fun Magazine, but I cannot seem to find it again. Anyway, you need a plastic Easter egg and a glow stick, some construction paper and googly eyes or marker and pipe cleaners if you want antennae and legs.
Put the glow stick inside the egg and then glue the construction paper wings on and eyes and pipe cleaners (we skipped this part). Let them dry and then play with them or hang them for a nighttime scene inside.
We also tried this with toilet paper rolls and construction paper. We put a glow stick inside and then put orange paper over the head end and yellow over the tail end then covered the roll in orange. We added white and orange wings and drew on a face.
I apologize now for my camera. It does not do well with the glow in the dark pictures or any nighttime pictures.
Finally, our last inspiration was from Lorie at Reading Confetti. Using glow sticks to make fireflies or butterflies. Ours looks more like a butterfly.
We have a few more ideas to try with fireflies and then we are going to move onto butterflies. Of course, yesterday's story time got me thinking more and more about butterflies and bugs! I want to try a few ideas from Betsy over at Tippytoe Crafts. I always love her ideas!!
Summertime always reminds me of fireflies. I have fond memories of catching fireflies in jars and using them as a nightlight in our pop-up camper at sleepover parties. Of course when I woke up early the next morning I was very afraid of the ugly bug in the jar. We use to have sleepovers in our camper in our backyard in the summer.
I wanted to share this with Hazel. Since she does not stay up when it is dark we read some books and did some crafts.
We took some books out of the library. First is Fireflies! by Julie Brinckloe. This is a great story of a child going out with the neighborhood kids to catch fireflies and realizing as the light changes color that the firefly needs to be free.
Next is Living Lights: Fireflies in Your Backyard by Nancy Loewen. This book gives interesting facts about fireflies and their general life cycle including what they eat, how they are born, etc.
The third book is Go, Critter, Go! Flash, Firefly, Flash! by Dana Meachen Rau. This is another book about fireflies and is written for the very young.
Another great book is The Little Squeegy Bug by Bill Martin, Jr. We did not take this book out this time, but have in the past. We love this book. It is a story of how the firefly got its light.
Next we went and got some glow in the dark fluorescent yellow paint. We started by painting dots on black paper. Or should I say I did. Hazel had other ideas.
My painting
Hazel's painting
Next we tried to paint fireflies on the black paper using the yellow for just the tail.
