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Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids--Kevin Henkes' My Garden

AugustSummerVirtualBookClub
Oh, I am so excited!! Today has finally arrived!! This month for the Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids the author is one of our favorites: Kevin Henkes. Today we will be discussing his book, My Garden.

For those of you who have not read about the Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids I am participating with 20+ other blogs to run this blog hop. Each of us is showing some activity to go with a Kevin Henkes book (and not all the same ones), so please stop in and check out some of the exciting things others are up to. The blogs participating in hosting this blog hop are:


Please make sure you visit them and check out their posts. Also, several of us have exciting giveaways to run later this week thanks to Harper Collins, so make sure you check out later in the week each one as well!
"If I planted seashells, I'd grow seashells."--from My Garden by Kevin Henkes

Now onto some of our things with My Garden. My Garden was the second Kevin Henkes book we discovered. The first is Little White Rabbit. If you have not read either of theses, I highly recommend them. They are favorites in our house. Both inspire imagination as well. My Garden is told from a young girl's voice telling you about her mother's garden and how she helps then she tells you what she wants her garden to be like. This provides so many openings for educational ideas. You could easily plan a garden with a seed catalog. For younger kids just ask what they would like in their garden. For older kids you could have them look up the space needed for such plants and actually have them draw out plans for the garden.

We did not go that route. For awhile I considered having a My Garden Birthday Party for Hazel, so I have spent many hours thinking about the different things the young girl says she will have in her garden and how to represent them. As you see above, the seashell flowers that we used in her nursery rhyme party would also work here. But our major one is the jelly bean bush. I thought about this for awhile and even mentioned it to the children's librarian at our local library. I had decided to make Rice Krispie Treat Jelly Bean Bushes and she told me about Corn Flake Wreathes which would look more realistic for the leaves. So this is what we did. We found a recipe at Kelloggs. We followed the recipe but made mounds for bushes and topped them with our favorite jelly beans from a local candy store. I have to say this treats are not helping me lose weight since they are so delicious!! And for the first time, Hazel has actually said she likes jelly beans. She loved making these. By the way, we decided to make small bushes instead of a big one for ease of sharing and eating!
A little note about melting the marshmallows and butter in the microwave. Do not cover or the marshmallows balloon up. (Please learn from my mistake!)

Another idea we had was to make glowing strawberry lanterns. However with my being sick last week, it did not happen. I was imagining making decoupage around water balloons with red tissue paper and then painting black dots on them (and of course popping the balloons) and sticking in a battery operated light or a string of lights and stringing them. My other idea was red tissue paper on baby food jars and cutting out green felt leaves and using battery operated tea lights. Sorry we didn't get to try this, but maybe we will share it later in the run of this blog hop since it goes on for three weeks!

Our final simple idea is the flowers that change colors. I got this idea from a Sharing Saturday from a few weeks ago. A Happy Song shared her Scrap Paper Dolls. I loved this idea and as I started thinking about the flowers that changed colors I thought this would be perfect. First I found a stencil of a flower I liked. I found a border of them at About.com. I printed it on cardstock and then cut out the petals, center and stems with an Exacto knife. Then I just gave Hazel scraps of scrapbook paper to put under them. So much fun!



Ok, now it is your turn. Feel free to link up your Kevin Henkes inspired activities below and feel free to grab a button so others can find our blog hop! This button takes you to our Facebook page! Oh, and for those of you who like to plan ahead--we are continuing this for the whole year and September's author is Lois Ehlert.
AugustSummerVirtualBookClub

14 comments:

  1. My Garden is such a beautiful book! I love the changing flowers activity. Looks like you had fun!

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  2. The jellybean bush looks delicious! And it really looks like a book! So much fun!

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  3. Cute ideas. I like your shell flowers. We read My Garden for this month too. Such a great book.

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  4. I saw you on Top moms and wanted to come by and vote for you. Its even more awesome that you are doing a hop. I joined your facebook and GFC. Hope you have a great day. Hope you will follow me back @ www.onecreativeprocrastinatinggal.blogspot.com

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  5. These are all such fun ideas. I bet the glowing strawberry lanterns would be so cool- a project for another time!

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  6. When I was teaching third grade, I used to do a Friends & Family Unit at the beginning of the year based on Kevin Henkes books. Love his books and your great activities.

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  7. We just discovered My Garden when we were searching for Kevin Henkes' books. Thanks for sharing these adorable activities, I know my daughter will love everyone of them! Thanks for joining the Kevin Henkes Virtual Book Club!

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  8. Love the flowers that change colors - that would make such an awesome birthday wish card!

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  9. I want a Jelly Bean bush!!! :-)
    Thanks for sharing with my Super Link Party! :-)

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  10. Your jelly bean bushes are so fun! And they look super tasty too :-) Love all your activities, and thanks for sharing at Happy lil ❤'s are baking!

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  11. Love the jelly bean bush. That is such a cute snack and it goes perfectly with the book. Thanks for sharing at Mom's Library!

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  12. I love your jelly bean bush!

    Thanks for linking to Science Sparks x

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  13. I love e activities you've done and it looks such a lovely book. I'm so pleased to have found a new favourite author through the virtual book club

    Thanks for linking to the Sunday showcase.

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I love to hear your comments and ideas. Thank you for reading and contributing!