The Bunny’s Night Light

Hello readers! It’s been a while I have posted. To be honest – summer, two demanding and growing toddlers, PMP certification exam, and a house move consumed me. It’s been tiring to the core. But here I am, finally doing things that give me pleasure – one of them is Bookspiration.

In this post, I want to talk about the book – The Bunny’s Night Light. The highlight of the book is that it glows in the dark! I did not even know until one day Inaya told me – look Mumma light!

This is a book about the Little Bunny looking for just the right night-light with his Papa. The pair go for a walk around the woods and Papa points out the possibilities. Perhaps the moon is the ideal night-light? Or maybe the fireflies will be able to help? Or even the little glowworm? This cute little comforting story will surely be loved by your little bunnies.

Here are some ways you can build on this book with art, math, and language.

1. Make your own Bunny (Total Time = 15 minutes )

The most simple and exciting activity we did based on the book was making our bunny. It is a great activity to talk about shapes – circle, rectangle, semi-circle, oval, etc. As I mentioned, we recently moved to a different house, so I have several boxes. I just cut one box to create the base and made the shapes with simple origami papers. Any color paper would do. I used various objects in the house to trace shapes. I held the object and asked the girls to trace the shape. I then corrected it slightly before cutting.

I also have kids scissors. So, while I was cutting the shapes, I gave them waste papers to practice cutting skills. This also helps them develop fine motor skills and control of objects. The pieces you see in the picture around the bunny are the ones the girls had cut with the scissors.

My aim is not to be perfect, but allow freedom to my girls to explore and use their creativity. This also reflects how they are imagining objects in the brain!

For this activity you will need:

• Origami paper or any paper of sheet you can use to cut shapes
• Glue stick
• Eyes (you can even make with a pen)
• Objects for tracing shapes

Thinking questions:

• What actions a bunny does – hop, jump, skip, run.
• Where does bunny live – garden, green vegetation.
• What does bunny eat – hay, fresh fruits and vegetables.

2. Make a Night Lamp (Total Time = 20 minutes )

When we finished making the bunny, both girls asked me – mumma where is his lamp? So, we decided to make a night lamp for bunny. For this activity, you will need:

• Cardboard or anything that can be a base
• Paper cup
• Marker Pen
• Stickers to decorate the lamp
• Glue to stick the lamp and base
• Origami or any color paper to make the base

Like I said, I had several boxes. So, I just cut to bases and covered it with sticky liner papers to give a wall paper look. You can first decorate the lamp and then stick it. I first pasted the lamp and then asked the girls to decorate it. They were very excited that they we decorating the lamp for bunny.

Thinking points:

• Talk about switching off lights when the work is done.
• Show them pictures of different types of lamp (shapes) – floor, table, hanging, etc.

3. Make Your Own Boat (Total time = 15-20 minutes)

If you read the book, there are multiple pictures and word references to boat. At one point, Bunny’s papa recommends to get the lantern light hanging on the boat. So, we made a boat! It is a great way to teach shapes and in particular how many sides a particular shape has. For example, we talked a lot about triangle while making our boat, how many sides it has, with this letter it starts, etc. For this activity, you will need:

• Cardboard base
• Orgimai paper
• Straw
• Sun shape stamp or paper to draw the sun
• Fish shaped stickers

4. Building a Goodnight Scene (Total time = 10-12 minutes)

You can also build a night scene like we did for the Goodnight Moon book.

5. Math – Count the number of Night Lights (Total time = 5 minutes – can be done anywhere)

During the night walk, Papa gives little bunny several options for the night lamp. While reading the book, count the number of night light options Papa gives before the perfect one! Try this with the book and without the book also. Ask them to name and number both. For example, fireflies – one, lamp post – two, boat lantern light – three, etc.

In addition, go around the house and count the number of lamps or lights you have in the house.

6. Science – Firefly (Total time = 5 minutes – can be done anywhere)

I mentioned earlier in my post that this is a glow in the dark book. So, create a dark room and see the fireflies glow in the book. You can use this opportunity to talk a bit about fireflies. For example, you can talk about:

• What are fireflies?
• Where do they come from?
• When do they come out – night or day time? Remember we talked about nocturnal animals with Chester Racoon in the book – The Kissing Hand.

You can also read Eric Carl’s The Very Lonely Firefly.

7. Language Skills (Total time = 5 – 10 minutes – can be done anywhere)

As you read the book, there are several words you can choose to build language activities. We chose to build on letter B and the letter L. We did the following activities and you can chose to do it on a whiteboard by drawing or verbally.

• What begins with the letter B? Try to pick different names so that they learn the phonics. For example – Bunny, Ball, Base, Biscuit, Blackboard, Buckle, etc.
• What begins with the letter L? For example, Love, Look, Lion, Lamp, Light, Lot, Little, Lantern, etc.

We picked up one word – Bunny. What does bunny do? Time to use action words – hop, jump, run, crawl, sit, eat, sleep, etc. We practiced each action word by physically doing it. Good way to get some exercise in. You can write these action words on balloons and tie each balloon in a place. Then, ask to go to a balloon and do the action word written on it.

I hope you will enjoy trying these activities as much as we did. And yes, we don’t do it all in one day. I always keep the goal of one activity a day. Days when my twins are busy playing with each other, I skip the activities completely and let them enjoy each other’s company!

Until next bookspiration, stay safe, stay healthy!