This month’s Grab & Go Craft Kit lets your child’s imagination sail away! Make an interactive toy while supplies last (available in our outdoor Creation Station and inside the Library in the Youth Services Department). Directions to create a tall ship are included in the kit. Enjoy these extension activities to go along with the craft!
Younger Children
The five early literacy practices that help children get ready to read are: playing, singing, talking, reading, and writing. This month’s interactive craft can help you do all five practices together!
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- Coloring the ship and holding onto the dowel to make the ship sail up and down the waves strengthen the muscles in little hands….those muscles will one day hold pens and write words! So both coloring and playing with the ship are actually pre-writing activities.
- Sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” together as your child plays with the toy. Singing helps children pay attention to individual syllables, which will make it easier for them to sound out words when they’re ready to read.
- Talk together about where you’d like to sail. If you sailed on the ocean, what animals might you see? Where could you go? If you sailed on Lake Michigan, what different animals would you see? If you sailed in your imagination, where would you want to go? You can also write down the story your child tells you!
- Read one of these books together.
The Antlered Ship by Dashika Slater
Mighty Tug by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
Are You the Pirate Captain? by Gareth P. Jones
The Usborne Big Book of Big Ships by Minna Lacey
Older Children
Older children can make the craft and then create a story or poem to go along with it.
- Here are some story starters.
- I am the captain of this ship! Come aboard and join us as we sail away to look for….
- After days and days on this ship, we have dropped anchor off the shores of a deserted island. A few of us swam to the shore, only to discover…
- The storm was a terrible one! All night, we were tossed on the waves. When the sun rose, bringing with it calmer waters, I was shocked to see…
- Create an acrostic poem. You can use the word SHIP or SAIL or OCEAN as your foundation. For example:
Sailing away, I reached
A land that wasn’t on any map! The magical
Island was surrounded by purple water and
Little polka-dotted mermaids!
- Your older child might enjoy one of these books!
Pirate Queen: A Story of Zheng Yi Sao by Helaine Becker
Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art of Confusion by Chris Barton
Oceanology: The True Account of the Voyage of the Nautilus by Dugald Steer
Seven Voyages: How China’s Treasure Fleet Conquered the Sea by Laurence Bergreen
