Friday, June 17, 2011

Cloudette

Our feature book this week is Cloudette, written by Tom Lichtenheld.  Tom is also the illustrator for the book Duck! Rabbit!, which is another book I love :]
Cloudette is a cute little book about a very small cloud who feels like she can't do anything "big" like her other cloud friends.  On a journey she meets new friends, has new adventures and finds she can do something big in her own little way!
I've read this book to children ages 4 thru 15, and they all loved it!  Cloudette is great for teaching self confidence.


ACTIVITY TIME!
I chose to do two different activities for this book :]  Do these activites outside under the fluffy clouds....SO fun!

activity #1:  making a cloud!
*supplies you will need - 1 empty water bottle (remove the label), 2-3 tablespoons hot water and matches*
Pour the hot water into the bottle.  Light a match and let it burn a little bit then blow it out.  Hurry and stick the smoking match into the bottle covering the top as much as possible.  After a about 3 seconds pull match out and quickly put the lid back onto the bottle.  Squeeze the bottle a couple times and watch as the water is pulled into the smoke...making...A CLOUD! (you may want to notice how the smoke swirls around in the bottle before it becomes more solid!)
clear bottle
cloudy bottle
p.s. this activity will need lots of MOM help and a good talk about using matches in a safe way.


activity #2: cloud pictures!
*supplies you will need - blue paper, cotton balls and glue*
Go outside, lay down on the grass and look up in the sky.  What do the clouds look like today?  Can you find clouds forming into familiar shapes?
When the observation is over...see if you can create what you saw?  Take the cotton balls and stretch them (if you saw stratus clouds - the long stretchy ones) and glue them onto your sky (aka blue paper).  Try to make them look as close as you can to what you saw!  If the clouds were puffy and made shapes (cumulonimbus are big and fluffy) create the shapes they made.  In this case don't stretch the cotton balls.  Leave them and glue them close together into interesting shapes!  This activity can be as free as you want it to be...not all children see the same shapes in the clouds.  What might look like a dog to one could be seen as a dragon to another.  It doesn't matter...it's the visual creativity that counts! :]
this is what the sky looked like from my house today...lots of stratus clouds :]
we copied the clouds we saw in the sky!  Since we didn't have any cumulonimbus we created some of our own....like this bunny!
another nice shape to see would be a dinosaur!
Luckily we had a nice clear day to have this book club!  I encourage you to do this on any day, no matter what the sky gives you!  Even if there are storm clouds, it's all good because that would make it even more interesting :]

Happy cloud watching...
Miss Lisa :]

3 comments:

  1. I love your site! Your ideas are just too cute! Newest follower!

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  2. First...THANKS for following :] Second...I really appreciate your kind compliment!!

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  3. Ooh, I want to make a cloud now! What a cool idea - thanks for linking up with the Play Academy

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