Welcome to another post of Bookspiration. Today we are going to talk about one of my personal favorite book: The Kissing Hand. Oh, what a lovely book for so many reasons. This book is about being able to comfort your little bundle of joy in their anxious times.
Chester is a young raccoon and is extremely anxious about leaving his mother, his toys, and his friends on the first day of school. Lovingly, his mother shares a secret that will help him cope with his new world. Honestly, the story can be applied to any situation, from first day of school to doing the first slide in the park independently; from explaining the child that mom dad are here at home but they need to work, to sitting with them in those wee hours when they suddenly wake up from crying.
And, here is a list of activity ideas that can go along with the book perfectly!
School Bag
My girls are obsessed with their school bags. School or no school, they pretend and play with it all the time. So, when we were reading this book, they asked me, where is Chester racoon’s school bag? I said, well there is no school bag, so let’s make one for him.
What do you need:
- Sticks
- Decoration items, whatever your child likes
- Bag shape paper cuts
Water Bottle for the School
Of course, we need water cups too along with the school bag. This came up when we were doing the bags. So with limited time and supplies at hand, this is what we came up with. And we labeled it too, just like it is done for school.
What do you need
- Paper cup
- Muffin liners
- Straw
- Rubber bands to tie up the liner
- Marker Pen or a label for name
Hand Prints
Well, this is a no brainer is think. If you google, you will find several styles in which you can do hand print activity. We just tried a simple one. The girls were so thrilled with the kissing hand that I could only get to this one photo before the final product was with them and they were not ready to part with it.
What do you need
- Paint – let kids choose the color of hand
- Glue
- Sticks
- Heart Shaped
- String, if you don’t use sticks
Once the hand prints had dried, we glued them on a stick and placed some hearts on it. The picture below is only for reference what it looked like. And you can make your own creative version of hand and heart.
Tree of Hope
Education is hope and answer for everything in life. So, we tried to make the tree shown in the Owl School where Chester raccoon sits with this friends. And I named it The Tree of Hope. 🙂
What you need
- Construction Paper
- Pen
- Finger stamps
- Animal stickers to stick on the tree
List out Nocturnal Animals
We have an Animal Atlas at home. So, along with the book, we tried to identify six (three each girl 😉 ) noctural animals – Owl, Coyote, Red-eyed frog, Tiger, Wombat, and Mouse. In addition, we also opened the Atlas page to see who else lives in Raccoon’s habitat – forests, lakes, and prairies. For example, Opossum, Two-spotted Lady Bug, Moose, Whooping Crane, Blue Jay, etc. With the animal atlas in front helps them to identify each animal with pictures.
List our your friends from school/play dates
This activity I have tried only verbally. However, you can do this with pictures if you have any. I asked my girls who all are their friends in school and we named them one-by-one. In addition, we identified the “letter” with which the name begins with. This just added as a revision for them for alphabets.
The Kissing Hand is a book that grows on you and stays in your heart forever. If you are into buying books for you toddlers, this one is surely for keep!
Hope you enjoy these activities as much as we did!
Until next book, stay safe, and stay healthy.
twinspiration.me 