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Bringing Your Child’s Book to Life Fun Activity & Craft

August 17, 2012 Activities, Crafts, Reading to Children, Tips 66 Comments

Reading to your child has many benefits from developing language to growing imagination. We have blogged about bringing your child’s books to life including I Am A Bunny & Skippyjon Jones. We had a request to bring A Cuddle for Little Duck to life and we had fun doing it! We liked A Cuddle for Little Duck because it is a sweet book of the simple joys of everyday living and the importance of cuddles – what’s not to love about that!

What you need:

  1. A Cuddle for Little Duck book
  2. Yellow & orange construction paper
  3. Non Toxic glue
  4. Googly eyes
  5. Scissors (adult use only)
  6. A nature trail, forest preserve, prairie, pond or pet shop if you can’t go outside in nature.
  7. Open arms for cuddles

What to do:

  1. Read the book A Cuddle for Little Duck
  2. Act the scenes: run through the meadow (a prairie, park, empty lot, yard, will work), go to a pond to look at frogs (pet shop will work in a pinch), sit under a tree and tell your child a story (mommy duck tells a story at lunch to baby duck), put on some music and shake your tail feathers like little duck
  3. Cut a big yellow circle from construction paper for ducks body, a smaller one for head and 2 ovals for wings (teach your child shapes while you do this)
  4. Cut small triangle from orange construction paper for beak and two bigger triangles for feet
  5. Glue all the parts together to form a duck
  6. Glue on to face the beak and googly eyes
  7. Be sure to give lots of cuddles throughout the day

If there is a children’s book you would like us to bring to life, please let us know by leaving a comment!

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66 comments

  2. Cassandra Eastman on said:

    This is such a cute idea, my son would really love this! Will have to rent this book at the library and do this craft together. Very creative!

  4. Terri Betz on said:

    I’d like to see you bring to life the book, Goodnight Moon! Great idea! :) I think I can try this idea too!

  8. Rebekah on said:

    I love creating the props and acting out the book. I hadn’t thought of doing this with children’s books, but it looks so fun!

  10. Anita Anderson on said:

    OMG that was soooo cute :-) my son would so make me go to the dollar store to make that.

  18. Michelle S. on said:

    It never dawned on me to create the characters from children’s books. I like the idea a lot! Thanks for sharing!

  20. Sara Kay on said:

    As a new grandma, I can’t tell you how helpful this is! I have this book! I would love to see how you can bring “Where The Wild Things Are” to life!! :-) Thanks so much for all your ideas!

  21. Karen Rogers on said:

    Making this craft to dramatize the story will provide many opportunities to reread the book which is essential for learning to read.

  22. jessica baucom on said:

    Very cute! Great idea! Will deff have to try this and it would work with alot of other books also!

  26. Sherry J. on said:

    I would like to see the Llama Llama books or Dr. Suess books come to life! That’s such a cute idea!

  29. Natalie S on said:

    What a great idea! I will need to do this with my almost 4 year old! He really enjoys crafts and this is a fun one especially since it’s associated with a book!

  30. Laura Miller on said:

    I love this post! We do things like this too from time to time! My kids do so love story time! :)

  33. Colleen Maurina on said:

    This is such a great idea! Our little guy loves to have books read to him every day and has many favorites. I’m looking forward to thinking of ways to bring them to life.

  35. Felicia R on said:

    I love this idea! My daughter is obsessed with animala and would love to make her own duckie!

  45. Ali Schroeder on said:

    I love this idea! Reading is a big thing in our house and crafts are always fun!

  47. Jana on said:

    What a great idea to bring the book to life and make it more real for your child. I could see reading the book, making the craft and then reading the book while cuddling the duck. :-)

  48. Alicia C on said:

    This is such a cute idea!! My little one already loves books, but if we can add a craft it would be even better!!

  49. Amanda Baird on said:

    Im always trying to find new fun things to do with my kids..Never thought to make a book come to life basially. Thanks!

  56. Heidi Daily on said:

    This a cute craft to go along with this cute book. I think it is important to extend activities from books to improve children’s understanding of the story and love of books

  64. Kathy Pease on said:

    what a fabulous idea mixing reading and crafts.this would make reading fun not only for the child but for the parent too :)

  65. Joy Pablo on said:

    This is such a sweet idea!! We always read to our little ones at bedtime but this is such a creative way to incorporate reading at any time of the day!!! I love it we will definitely be giving this a try =)


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