Hullabaloo Stories Design Blog

A fun post for today…it’s “Leap Day” so let’s leap into reading for this year. Inspired by Dr. Seuss’ quotes, check out our printable bookmarks in fun Dr. Seuss patterns. Click on the link below to see all the books marks we have created (the quote should be printed on the backside to create a two-sided bookmark and, if possible, we recommend you laminate the bookmarks)

Download these bookmarks in celebration of Read Across America Week

Like or share to download this file.

Check back on Friday for a fun post after we deliver these bookmarks to one lucky local elementary school with a lot of ideas about how to encourage a love for reading in your children.

Source: 30 Dr. Seuss Quotes to Live By

Use modern technology to engage your children in reading? Yes you read that right. Reading with your child can incorporate modern technology, these varied formats can help to engage them in the process of reading and help them to understand the idea of the book.

Since we are celebrating Read Across America and Dr. Seuss’ birthday lets look at the world of Dr. Seuss and all the ways to read his books. Besides the traditional hardcover books there are so many ways to engage your children in the world of Dr. Seuss.

This is the first in a series of blog posts about various formats of multimedia.

Today we will look at movies, in recent years there have been several Dr. Seuss books made into movies (Dr. Seuss’ The Cat In The Hat and Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas), the most recent movie was Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who and this Friday The Lorax is being released nationwide. This movie is based on the story The Lorax , a story largely about ecological awareness, even though it was written in the early 1970’s the message still rings true today and is an important message of taking care of our environment. The story is engaging and as always, Dr. Seuss’ books are entertaining and imaginative. The movie will likely be just as entertaining, especially considering the cast of stars lending their voices to Dr. Seuss’ characters.

Taking young children to the movie theater can be really fun, but also overwhelming if they do not have a concept of the story before seeing it. One strategy to help your children understand a movie is to sit down with them and read the story. But instead of simply reading cover to cover, ask them questions. Have them predict what is going on based on the pictures and pick out what ideas seem important to them. This will give your children confidence in their own reading (pre-reading) skills and some ownership in the story.

Once the movie is over you can continue to engage them in the story by re-reading the book and asking some of those same questions you asked them before, have them discuss what they learned, create a project, a drawing or some other way for them to show you what they have learned with the story. With a story that has a message like The Lorax does you can have your child take action, check out these coloring pages we made for our kids, the Read Across America site has some ideas for doing just that. Several associated sites are offering various activities for parents and teachers to share with children, including online games. These techniques of pre and post reading can be used for any book, reading the same book or going over the same story several times can be very helpful for children to learn how to read and what the process of reading includes. For some more tips, check out this great blog post here on I Can Teach My Child

Below are some coloring book pages (in full color) click on the link above to download the coloring book pages.

Disclaimer: The Lorax and other Dr. Seuss books are copyrighted by Random House, Inc. Dr. Seuss properties ™ & © 1937-2011. These books are available at Amazon.com and many other booksellers. The purpose of this post is to encourage parental/child interaction with these literary works and pre-reading skills and not to seek gain in the form profit by mentioning them here.

Hullabaloo Stories is celebrating Read Across America as well, with a week long set of posts that focus on children’s books, literacy strategies and some free printables. We will culminate the week with a fun give away.

This coming Friday (March 2, 2012) is Read Across America day, sponsored by the National Education Association This day not only celebrates reading but the birthday of Theodore S. Geisel (aka Dr. Suess). Across the country, thousands of schools, libraries, and community centers participate by bringing together kids, teens, and books, and you can too!

Check out tons of great activities, printables and lesson plan ideas here on Suessville

and for now…take a moment to read a book to your child…let us know in the comments below, what is your favorite book to read to your child?

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I wanted to share my absolute favorite books about the amazing love between parent and child. These are the books I love to read to my children.

This first book was a book I fell in love with when I was in 2nd grade, my teacher even cried when she read it, back then I had no idea why but when I became a parent I understood why. I used to read this book to both of my kids when they were in my belly. I wanted them to come into this world knowing they were loved and would be forever.

Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

This book goes through a child’s life span and explains how a mother’s love know no limits, no matter how hard the day was, no matter how bad the temper tantrums were and no matter how much the house got messy or things got broken, at the end of the day, parents love their children unconditionally.

“Love you forever, like you for always” is my favorite quote of the book.

You Are My I Love You, by Maryann Cusimano Love

This book is pure poetry to me, the love between a parent and child is unique. This story goes through the ways parents love their children and children love their parents.

“I am your way home; you are my new path.” is my favorite quote from this book, as it describes new parenthood so well, a new path for the parent but homebase for the whole family.

I Love You Through and Through, by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak

This book is not only about loving your child and everything about them but its a teaching book. While ready this book you can teach your child about emotions, body parts, and motions.

My favorite line is the last two pages of the book, “I love you through and through…yesterday, today and, tomorrow, too”. I tend to get a little teary when I read that line to my children.

I Love You More, by Laura Duksta

This is a fun book because it shows both sides of the love story of mother and child, the book itself has two stories in it, the author writes that its a “flip-side book…like love it never ends” I think that is my favorite, because like my favorite children’s book, Love You Forever, the love between parents and children never ends.

Inside the book the mother tries to explain her love for her child and on the flip side the child attempts to do the same thing in words that a child would use to explain things.

Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney

In this book the little bunny is trying to tell his dad how much he loves him but in return the daddy bunny expands on that to show the love he has for his child is limitless. A very cute story.

So there you go, my favorite books about loving your children. I love to read these books to my children and I hope that you will enjoy them as well.

Have you joined Pinterest yet? If not you really should, its such a great way to catalog all the things you find on the internet and find even more fun stuff, especially for your kiddos. I have found so many things to keep my 3 year old occupied and have also been inspired by new recipes and projects for myself. I want to share a few Valentine’s Day ideas that mainly came from Pinterest.

This week, we worked on a project with our 3 year old. A Valentine’s Day Wreath, it was pretty simple and only took us a few minutes. We purchased some burlap and a foam wreath from our local arts and crafts store, as well as the heart. We already had the ribbon but you could also pick this up at the store while you are purchasing your other supplies.

Our 3 year old painted the heart with her washable kids paints and helped to wrap the burlap and ribbon. The only part she really couldn’t do was use the hot glue gun to secure everything into place. It was really that simple and she is very proud of it.

Another little project I am going to be doing from now until the 14th is using these little mail boxes I picked up at the arts and crafts store, one for each of the kids. I wrote on the side of each one in a paint pen, “Ainsleigh’s Love Notes” on a light purple box and “Nolan’s Love Notes” on a red box. Each morning before I head off to work I am planning to leave them a little love note for the day. To help them with their pre-reading skills I will use pictures and words to leave them with a little note each day .

This craft is all over the web, I even saw it on the Today show, here is my pin on Pinterest, these would make really fun gifts with a custom coloring book or coloring page.

The last craft I want to share are thumbprint bookmarks from Sweet and Lovely Crafts. These are so cute and would be so much better than giving out candy or those little cards from the store that wind up getting tossed. These can be altered depending on the age of your child and can give them an opportunity to be involved with their Valentine’s gift to friends or classmates.

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day with your family.