Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf Sensory Bin

When I first read about the Virtual Book Club for Kids over at Toddler Approved! I was very excited and just knew this was something I HAD to do with Caden! The Virtual Book Club for Kids is a year-long book club. Every month features a different children’s author. Participants choose a book by that months author to read to their kids or class and then create an activity related to the book. Bloggers can then share their activities in a blog hop.

If you are not a blogger you can still share your experience on their Facebook wall.

This months author is Lois Ehlert. She has written many popular children’s books such as Leaf Man, Nuts to You, and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf. I chose to read the book Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf to Caden. It is a story about the life of a Sugar Maple tree. The story starts with the seeds twirling in the woods and landing among the leaves, growing into sprouts, being collected by nursery workers and replanted by a family. The illustrations are very colorful and in a collage style.

Over the course of last week, I read Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf to Caden. He enjoyed looking at the pictures and naming the animals (squirrels and  birds). To enhance the story I created a Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf sensory bin for Caden to play with. Caden very much enjoys sensory activities so I knew this would be a hit!

To create the sensory bin I added artificial Autumn leaves, which I purchased at a craft store. I then collected natural materials from our yard. Our back yard is surrounded by Maple trees so it wasn’t very hard to find twirly maple seeds, twigs and bark. I even included some of our new nature blocks in the bin. I added other elements from the book as well, such as “gardening” gloves which were really winter gloves, a stuffed squirrel that made the chatter of a squirrel and a bird. I tried to find a chickadee that is in the book, but I couldn’t find one so I settled on another winter bird, a female cardinal. Like the squirrel the bird also makes the whistle of the cardinal.

Caden really enjoyed playing with the sensory bin. He loved to dump the leaves out, toss them in the air, and put them back in. He is very fond of all animals and has taken a liking to squirrels. When he sees one in the yard he often says “Hi Dwirl!”. So he really enjoyed loving on the stuffed squirrel. Caden also thought the gloves were funny. A few times he would come find me in the house, showing me the gloves on his hands that Daddy had helped him with or asking me to put the gloves on. He would then take the gloves off and hand them to me or Daddy, asking us to put them on and tickle him. It was a lot of fun!

I can’t wait to get started reading books by next months author, Amy Krouse Rosenthal. You can look for that post around October 15th.

And please check out what other participants did by clicking on the link below!

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