Kids Book Party Planner with Children's Literature Book Crafts, Games, Snacks, Printables

Teacher Omi coming to you live from Grand Haven, Michigan, where it is raining and wet! So at least its not snow, BUT it's also too cold and wet to play outside. And you know what bored kids turn to, when they're rainy-day-bored: mischief! Did we learn nothing from the Cat in the Hat? The kids are the well-behaved ones and it was the cat who is the troublemaker! Why not stir up a little fun instead of trouble, with a cheap (mostly free) afternoon of fun, compliments of your storybook shelf. 

 

Here's a snowbound or rainy-day book party planner for kids, with children's literature crafts, snacks and storybook games. I've included free printable kids' book coloring pages to help keep youngers ones busy too. These book based activities are perfect for all ages. They're just right for Children's Book Day April 2 and Earth Month in April! 

What I do in the Omschool is to first, announce a book party. Stay-at-home parents, if at all possible, take the afternoon off and read to kids. Homeschoolers this is perfect for you! Turn off the phone, computer, music and television. Set younger kids to work creating book party decorations with these free printable book crafts links.

Next, pile the couch and floor with squishy pillows and cuddly blankets. Invite stuffed animal friends. And make a pillow pile. Make it the youngest toddler's job to collect supplies and create the atmosphere. Grandsons Emmett and Remus, I spy you for this task! Everyone gets to select his or her snuggle spot. You can even tell the kids to put  PJs on or do the book based costumes activity listed below. 

Now, choose a snowbound or rainy day book party theme--adventure, mystery, spring, fantasy, animals-- and let each child, including the baby, choose several of their favorite books on that subject. Our youngest Maximus loves his tail book from Omi and Opi so this would be a must-read. Or just keep it open-ended. Rotate reading one of each kid's chosen children's literature books. Parents, you get a pick too. 

Warning--be careful reading scary kids stories. Even books you didn't think would frighten may scare kids silly if read by a talented storyteller. I chose Sherlock Holmes "The Devil's Foot" one of my favorite scary stories) for one snowbound book party. I thought the children might be bored by Arthur Conan Doyle's Victorian English. After reading a bit, I looked up to ask if they enjoying and saw eight bulging eyes and four mouths gaped. In unison, they commanded, "READ!!" At bedtime, four tired children insisted they couldn't sleep it was that scary. They're in their 30s now and still fondly remember being scared to pieces and loving it! 

Decorate the house for the snowbound or rainy day book party and wear costumes. Put energetic kids to work making storybook based decorations and costumes of their favorite characters from kids stories. Themes might be nursery rhymes, fairy tales, fantasy (even older kids will love this). Kids who are -10, like my older babygrands Silas, Moses, Lola, Lucian, Henry, Milo and Juno will love this part. Anyone who can't participate fully due to limitations, such as my grandson Ezra who is laid up with a broken leg, is the automatic Party Commander-in-Chief. All decisions must go by him! (But do involve them as much as they possibly can.) Here are free printable spring coloring pages from Crayola to help. 

This should be completely DIY. Don't buy anything: set out the recycling bin, dress-up clothes, bedding, towels, boxes, camping furniture and craft supplies. Make bored children put their vivid imaginations to work. Our granddaughter Flora loves her trampoline, so that would make a marvelous setting for the party. 

Good children's literature kids stories to use are: "The Chronicles of Narnia", "Aesop's Fables", "Grimm's Fairy Tales", "The Hobbit", Beatrix Potter, Dr. Seuss or children's literature about the Bible, cars or animals. This will keep kids busy for hours, which is good if you have to do the book party on another day. Edupics has a gazillion free printable coloring pages on pretty much any subject you come up with. 

My oldest son did this with his college roommates for a going-away party. They decorated rooms in different biomes: mountains, desert, rainforest. They made treasure maps, games, and choose-your-own-adventure activities. Again, let creativity and ingenuity, not Internet or wallet dictate activities! We're going for cheap. Think leftover cardboard, recycle bin, foil scraps and things like that. Here's a Pinterest board with all kinds of free printable kids book based games and another with free printable library books scavenger hunt games. 

Make snacks. Inventive children will enjoy creating festive treats from children's literature. Again, don't buy anything special: use leftovers and let them experiment. Serve tea, coffee, cocoa and cookies like grownups do at their book clubs. Kids love pretending to be adults. One of our family favorite books parties consisted of reading Paddle-to-the-Sea and eating a gallon of pickles! Last Sunday, our son reprised this book party with our grandkiddos! 

Use your storybook selections as springboards for ideas; Make foods listed in kids stories. Some, like American Girls, have accompanying cookbooks or recipes listed in the back. We once had a vintage Winnie-the-Pooh party and made Pooh recipes of haycorn pie, succotash and honey cake. Engage kids.

Children who like writing might write a journal entry about the storybook. Preschoolers and special needs children might illustrate kids stories they hear. Let kids draw and color while they listen. This keeps fidgety ones busy. Don't make is too schoolish. Keep the focus on fun.

Free poetry month lesson plans, poem templates, activities for young poets with printables

Hello and welcome to Teacher Omi's (grama's) favorite month or one of them! April celebrates many things including National Poetry Month. And April's other hat of Earth Month  nicely matches her poetry dress! So from the Omschool, where everything's coming up crocus and daffodil, here are free poetry month lesson plans, poem templates and activities for young poets. And you know that everything Omschool comes with free pintables! And, since the Omschool originated as a homeschool (33 years ago!) these poem activities will be geared to all ages, right down to the newest of my dynamic dozen babygrands, Max and Flora (Omi loves you all so much💕)

Acrostic name poems and All about Me poems The best place to begin is with what the child knows. So make an acrostic with his or her name. Juno- Jumping joyfully UnderNeath and Over. All about Me features kids filling in blanks with words to describe themselves. Bonus added use opposites, like " I am____ but I'm also _________. I  like ______ and I don't like ______. 

Nature Wander and Write. You get the best April has to offer with a BOGO nature walk and poetry slam! The concept is simple and the materials are few. (Mothers of many and teachers of crowds, rejoice!) You basically just find a pretty spot to wander, a meadow, field, by a brook, at the beach, in the woods. Equip each student over 7, Silas, Moses, Lola, that's you, with a pencil and notepad. Or for youngers, Lucian, Henry, Milo, Ezra, Juno this means you, each gets a box with crayons and paper. The mobile newbs, Emmett, Remus and Flora, get a box to collect samples. Max, your task is to supervise and provide commentary. The idea is to note down or draw interesting things you see. Once indoors you can complete your poem or poem drawing (art is poetry just with pictures, just like poetry is art with words). 

Gestalt Poetry Ponder Gestalt is a German phrase meaning that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Nowhere do we see this so clearly as in nature. So for this type of poetry, simply bring in one natural element. Might I suggest the humble yet regal pussywillow (called kitty toes, by son Jake) Or Omi's personal favorite, a sprig of dogwood? Arrange it in a simple vase. Or give each his own to explore VAKT (visually, auditorily, kinesthetically and tactilely). Students should note down or draw observations. They should experiment with different descriptor words. This makes a nice language arts-science connection. 

Adverbs and Adjectives Adventure After collecting your nature observations, begin your poem by creating a chart. List what you see, hear, taste, smell and touch (nouns) and words to describe those nouns (adjectives). Then list what happened or what the nouns did (verbs) with words to describe how it happened or how they did it (adverbs). Use my poem (free printable, btw) Achy-Lake-y Michigan Scent at the Grama-Grampa House  for examples. This is basically just my list of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs about a walk to the lake. 

Haiku for You The humble haiku is a perfect poem starter activity for kids. Instead of rhyming, it relies on pattern of syllables. The 5-7-5 pattern is pretty easy to master. But don't let kids get bogged down by strict adherence, either. As with rhyme poems, haiku can be flexible too. It's more important to get a rhythm that flows. And sound byte is king. If kids have a juicy word they just have to weave in, let 'em do it! 

Making noise with Edgar Allen Poe-etry Mr. Edgar Allen Poe might have had his dark side but I think he was a kid at heart because he was all about the sound poems called (delicious word!) onomatopoeia! Simply, it's words named from the sounds they make: bang, crash, boom, and such. The Bells and The Raven being two famous poems. So, how to begin? By listening. Even the silence makes sounds of a sort. Describe, in words or by drawing what you hear. What is the wind saying? Or the waves? Or your cat? Use my poem Campfire Songs and Lightning Bugs or Fireflies to explore how sound is used in poems. Look for all the onomatopoeia examples you can find. 

Assonance and alliteration in verse Not all poetry rhymes or has a certain number of syllables. Some, like onomatopoeia, relies on sound to create a rhythm or cadence. One way to achieve that is by using repetitive vowel sounds (assonance) and consonants (alliteration). In Campfire Songs and Achy-Lake-y, I used moan-groan, thunder-crumble crunch assonance and "endlessly tameless" alliteration to generate a sound pattern. Can you find other examples? Now write some letter matches of your own.  

Farad-ing Poetry Michael Faraday was an inventor who discovered the Farad (electrical unit) which was later named for him. That's what happens when a word is lacking. We make one up. I don't know if Poe invented some of those onomatopoeia,  but I do know that I have and you can if you can't find just the write word for your poem. In my Campfire Songs poem I made up (or at least I think I did) the words sklush and sklish. Others like crickle-trickle and worry-hurry I combined from others words. And Dr. Seuss, if the man gave us anything, it was permission to make up fun words! Gardinker and hakken-krakks being two of my favorites. 

Rhyme-time So of course, rhyming uses sound to creates poetry. I like writing this kind and you might too. But I prefer the other kinds best. Having to create rhymes can cramp your word choices. You end up discarding words you'd like to use to fit the rhyme. And it takes practice to write in rhyme too. Begin by generating a list of rhyming words and patterns. Use my poem For the Love of Alyssum to go by. You'll see what I mean about how I had to sacrifice certain words for ones that fit. It's good to practice on rhyme poems but the other sound kinds will likely be more satisfying. And then there's

Free verse Fun My grandkids know that I love the poem "This is Just to Say" What they don't know is why. It's just a note on a refrigerator. What's poetic about that? And I think therein lies the crux of poetry. It's a state of mind? Just like how do Jackson Pollack's pain splotches constitute art? Is it okay to just write a list of stuff and call it poetry or throw paint at a wall and call it art? I don't know. But I think with children and new poets especially, it helps establish the habit if there aren't a bunch of rules to bog you down. So for this exercise, just have kids start writing, anywhere. Put a word in the middle of the page and write words around it. That becomes a shape poem. Make a grocery list and look for sound patterns. 

"twelve yellow lemons" 

"squash to nosh"

"ruby red grapefruit"

"green beans" 

It's all about the celebration of words. Oh and for the littles, sorry, forgot to list activities for them. The best exposure is to give them brightly colored and musical toys to explore with all their senses. Not the electronic ones, please. Avoid those. Toys with real bells, shakers and noisemakers that's the kind I mean. Oh and give them cloth books to touch and feel. Mr. Max loves his fuzzy tails book from Omi and Opi. 

Ken Nesbitt Poetry4Kids has free printable poetry templates, poem patterns and poem lesson plans. Red Dragonfly on My Shoulder is a great Haiku read-aloud. We are teachers has more free printable poetry frames and templates. 

Free Biomes and habitats lesson plans with activities, worksheets and printables

Hello my Omschoolers! Teacher Omi here with another batch of free geography and science lesson plans, this time featuring biomes and habitats. These are biological ecosystems (habitats) of plant and animal life that grow up around the temporal zones created by geological and geographical land and water formations and the weather and climate conditions they create. It's all down to the water cycle, my dears! 

So to begin with, what in the world are biomes? A better question might be where in the world are they? And the answer is, everywhere! Each region of the world has a biome (flora and fauna) that has developed in response to the geographical and geological features of the land and its water sources. These have created weather patterns and climate conditions which have in turn surfaced that land and caused certain vegetation to grow or not grow. And that in turn has caused animal life to develop certain features. Even the people that originally inhabited a place had to adapt to their environment. 

Here are the OG biomes that came into being: forests (tropical, temperate, and boreal or taiga), grasslands (savannas and temperate grasslands), deserts, tundra, and freshwater and marine ecosystems.  Each requires certain amounts and kinds of precipitation to maintain it. And the creatures that live within these do so in remarkable symbiosis.  

Unfortunately, human development of (aka building on) land has changed it. Plant and animal life has been deprived, driven out and eradicated by plowing under, draining, drying up, tearing apart, deforesting, polluting, filling up, drilling into, concreting over homes and biomes and stripping of resources. We see in The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss a parable about the outcomes of environmental destruction. So where creatures live now and what vegetation grows there has radically changed in many areas. But that's content for another day. 

Here are free biomes lesson plans from Lesson Plans that Rock. I checked all the links included and they work great! And here's a printable biomes lapbook pattern and tutorial to create it. Here are free biomes coloring pages to print from Ask a Biologist. And you can still count on EdHelper for great preschool animal science lesson plans. I'm also delighted to see that Mr. Donn is still around with free geography lesson plans, activities and printables galore. Plus every other subject in the curriculum! Has it really been 15 years since I discovered this site??

Interactive Geography games, landforms definitions and printable geography lesson plans

Hello Omschool friends! Teacher Omi (grama) here with free printable geography games, crafts and lesson plans. In the US, geography has been absorbed into broader social studies lesson plans. Many older people who were drilled in geography and history fault modern educators for not continuing this. How many times did I hear my grandparents complain that us kid knew so little about US history and geography, let alone world history and geography. And they were right and wrong. Social studies broadens the study to include world cultures, civics, government and other related topics. We learned to connect events in time and place, instead of just memorizing dates and battles. We learned about people of the world not just where places were. 

But critics are correct to an extent too--when subject scope is widened some specific content falls through the cracks. And a thorough understanding of world geography is content that should not. So here are easy, hands-on geography lessons to teach not only where in the world but how the world is made up. These activities to  show how people of the world adapted to regions of the world and how cultures differ by climate, landforms, water sources, biomes and animal habitats they inhabit. 

Make hands-on landforms and topography maps for social studies. Begin by mixing up a large batch of play dough. Make the play dough in class and use it for interactive math measuring lesson plans. Here's an easy play dough recipe. This recipe will make enough for one student. Multiply ratios to make enough play dough for your class size

1 cup hot water 

1 cup white flour 

1/4 cup salt 

1 teaspoon vegetable oil 

teaspoons alum or cream of tartar 

food coloring 

Mix ingredients with fork till play dough cools enough that it can be worked by hand. Measuring and mixing play dough in class gives students practice in ratios, fractions and measurement. When mixed, separate play dough into balls. Color one ball blue (or green) for water. Leave one ball plain white color for land. Give each student a paper plate, a plastic knife and two zippered bags to separate play dough colors. Students will use these in hands-on geography lessons. 

Introduce geographical terms and definitions for landforms. Demonstrate shapes of landforms using play dough and then by drawing landforms on the overhead projector. Use black pen for land and blue for water. Students will use their blue and white clay to create landforms based on drawings from the board or overhead projector. 

Landforms scavenger hunt. List different landform, types of bodies of water and geographical features. Students should locate examples of landforms on topography maps or globes with 3D terrain landforms. Here are free printable landforms coloring pages and worksheets for geography lessons. Mr. Nussbaum has free printable geography maps, landforms coloring pages and more. Edupics has free printable outline maps to color and label. 

Geography landform terms, definitions and examples for topography lessons. 

Water formations:

strait: narrow strip of water, separating two large land masses and connecting two larger bodies of water, inverse of an isthmus (Straits of Mackinac, Straits of Magellan, Bosporus)

gulf: large inlet of ocean near a land mass (Gulf of Mexico)

bay: smaller inlet of coastal ocean near a land mass that connects to another body of water(Kotor, Fundy, Maya, San Francisco, Botany)

fjord: narrow, deep glacial valley flooded by ocean 

bight: broad open slightly recessed curvature of coastline that creates a bay

sound: ocean inlet near a coast deeper than bight and wider than fjord. (Puget Sound)

lagoon: (Laguna) shallow pond cut off by reef or sand bank, that surrounds an island, such as the Venetian Lagoon or is coastal.  

lake: body of water larger than a pond, but generally smaller than an ocean. Largest ones by square mile are Caspian Sea, Superior, Victoria, Huron and Michigan. Deepest are Lake Baikal, Tanganyika, Caspian, Viedma, Vostok) Some are also called seas. 

ocean: largest named bodies in the world (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic)

river: narrow strip of water flowing in one direction from a higher elevation to a lower elevation (Nile, Amazon, Mississippi) 

waterfall: created a river flows over a cliff

tributary: branch of a river 

delta: area at the mouth of a river where the river fans out in muddy marsh, silt or tributaries to meet a larger body of water (Mississippi Delta)

river basin: area along river that is drained by the river. 

bayou: slow-moving marshy inlet, arm or outlet of river or lake. 

swamp: forested wetland 

marsh: like a swamp with grass being primary vegetation

mire or bog (peat moss wetland)

Land formations

peninsula: piece of land that juts out into a body of water (state of Florida, Indochinese, Arabian,  Iberian in Spain, Crimean, Scandinavian peninsulas) 

island: small land mass in a body of water

key: island in a chain (Key Largo)

chain of islands (state of Hawaii)

atoll: a circle of islands (Bikini Atoll) 

archipelago: a collection of islands in no formation. It resembles a puzzle broken into pieces because that's pretty much what it was. The Greek islands for example came from the solid land mass of  Aegeis. (Greece, including the Cyclades, Dodecanese, Ionian, Saronic, Sporades, and North Aegean island clusters). 

isthmus: narrow strip of land separating two large bodies of water and connecting two larger land masses, often bisected by man-made canal (Isthmus of Panama, Panama Canal) 

mountain: area of increased elevation rising to a peak 

cliff: the edge of a piece of land that cuts away to land of lower elevation 

dune: sandy beach that rises to an elevation along a lake 

bluff: a rounded area of land overlooking a lower elevation 

hill: an area of elevation smaller than a mountain with rounded top 

mesa: steep narrow elevation, similar to a hill or mountain with a flat top 

butte: an isolated rocky hill with steep, vertical sides and a flattish surface (Monument Valley, Death Valley, Grand Canyon) 

plateau: wide, high area of elevation with flat top 

canyon: narrow corridor or pass between rocky elevations 

gorge: similar to a canyon with a river bed at the bottom (Snake River Canyon) 

I've not included geographical surface types, or biomes, like tundra or savannah. These are biological plant and animal communities that develop in response to environment and climate which is created by water and land formations. That's subject matter for another lesson plan and Omi's tired! 😁