Hocus Pocus, It's Fall!

I can not think of a better book to start off the month of October with!   October, the month of leaves changing, pumpkins, a chilly nip to the air, and of course Halloween!  It's the month of scary movie marathons, books, decorations, hay rides, and haunted houses for kids and adults alike!  I have been put under a spell, and can't wait to share the magic of this book with you.  I have a feeling you will find it as wonderful as I do.

Hocus Pocus, It's Fall!


Written by Anne Sibley O'Brien
Illustrated by Susan Gal

Very first thing to grab my attention...the title.  Hocus Pocus! I love that movie, and rushed to pull this book off the shelf.  Then you see the adorable cover!  Yes, my heart had very high expectations for this book.  Anne and Susan did a phenomenal job in meeting my hearts expectations!  I adore this book!

This is a FUN book to read aloud.  It's impossible to not have fun, get excited and capture your audience's attention when you're using magic words like Abracadabra or burst out in laughter with phrases like Higgledy piggledy! This is one of the magical books that everyone who reads it is animated which brings the book to life and gets children's interested in reading and begging you to read it again.

Anne has done a great job in highlighting so many of the marvels of fall, from going back to school, to jack-o-lanterns, to migration, and silkweed plants.  The silkweed also called milkweed was new to me and I had to ask my husband and look up information about this plant to find out what O'Brien was talking about when she said "Spiky pods are brown and dried. Open sesame! Clouds inside."  As I've said before I love when I learn something new from books.  I love that she took something that is so overlooked that I didn't know what it was and put it in the book.

While this book is just a fun book to read it does offer many lessons that you can take and expand upon or do activities around.  Since I've mentioned fall leaves and hayrides in Fun Fall Books we can skip those activities and focus on some new ones that are brought up in this book.

Migration and Hibernation

In the illustration and text we see Geese flying south, squirrels collecting acorns, and chipmunks hibernating in their burrows. Depending on the age group you are with and how interested they are you can take this into a fun project and go into as much depth as you want.  Where do the Geese go?  Pull out a map and mark it with their migration.  Then find out what other birds or if there are other animals that migrate.  The monarch butterfly migrates, and so do some snakes. What animals travels the farthest?  This could be a very fun project for your class.  You can make a couple writing prompts about it as well like the one pictured here.  A great way to end a lesson on migration with a focus on geese is to watch the movie Fly Away Home.  It's an older movie but one of my favorites.
Now that we know what animals migrate, which animals hibernate?  How does that work?


Seeds
In Seeds of Fall I shared a couple books and talked about plants coming to harvest but O'Brien has shared a something new that you can focus a lot of time on: silkweed.  This one plant is vital to Monarch Butterflies and you can do a whole lesson on what it looks like, how people think of it as a week, and how to make a garden to attract these butterflies.

Pumpkins and Apples
If you take a trip to a pumpkin patch or orchard take a look at all the different shapes, sizes, and variety of the fruits and vegetables.  Make applesauce or a pie together.

Susan Gal has done a fantastic job in showing fall magic and capturing life, movement, and all that fall brings with it into her illustrations.  They are full of colors and texture.  This book is an expanded page good, so after the "magic" words you expand out a page to see the magic unfold and the scene change.  I love this concept and how she has taken each event that Anne mentions and finds the details to bring forth.  I love how Susan has included so many extraordinary elements to what could have just been and ordinary scene.  For example when Anne is telling about leaves changing color when you expand the page Susan didn't just paint a forest of autumn colors ablaze, she included hot-air balloons!  When you expand the migration page it's not just birds flying in the sky, you see cranberry farmers harvesting the fruit as the birds fly overhead.  These small details could be overlooked but they offer talking point.  I had my kids guessing about the cranberries, they thought they were just raking up leaves so it offered us an opportunity to go into how cranberries are grown.
Another thing I want to point out about these illustrations is how Susan Gal has combined so many different elements into her art.  You can clearly see that she used paint, and crayons, and as someone who is not an artist I'm not sure what other medias she used; but you can see that the art is complex.  All the elements and different textures make these images ones that you want to study and are beautiful to look at.

I hope you find this book as lovely as I have.  It may well be your favorite fall book yet!

If you are interested in the book or any of the movies I listed above here are some affiliate links to them directly.  By using these links I will get a credit at no additional cost to you and I thank you all for your support in either buying from my blog or just by reading it.

For my fellow Hocus Pocus fans check out this book and fun shirt: 

The Seeds of Fall

Welcome Fall!

While many people think of the trees and leaves as dying right now, is death the right word to use to describe what is happening?  It's actually not. (Check out what I learned about this in Full of Fall on my last blog post.) Sure the leaves themselves die, but the tree doesn't.  And there's more than just the lose of leaves that's going on this time of year.  Think of all the seeds we see this time of year and what is happening to them. I love when I pick up a children's book and learn something new and I have two books that focus on seeds to share with you today.

Because of an Acorn

Written by Lola M Schaefer and Adam Schaefer

Illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon

Along with leaves falling everywhere this time of year, there are acorns everywhere. I love listening to them fall down through the trees, and watching the chipmunks and squirrels scurry about gathering them.  I think that's one fall activity that is often overlooked so I love how this book brings this activity to mind.

Because of an Acorn is a fantastic, simple book about the circle of life.  I love that you can see and get a sense of the circle of life without it being too emotionally overwhelming for children.  I think the authors did a beautiful job of showing how each part of a forest ecosystem is connected.  That acorn grows into a tree, the tree houses all sorts of wildlife, and because of each one something else comes to live and grow.  Fran Preston-Gannon has done a wonderful job detailing each part that is  highlighted in the text and foreshadowing what will happen next.  The illustrations are full of color and dominate the pages.  I love how Fran has made sure to include so many other animals and parts of the forest that aren't in the text, you see a bear and cub they they aren't mentioned, but this shows so much more of the ecosystem and brings up more for conversation.

 The sequence of event is flawless! The lessons you can make off of this one simply written book are countless.  The dedication says, "For all the naturalists, young and old -L.M.S and A.S." and they are right, it's a book that as an adult I find beautiful but it's written on a level for children to understand.  Looking at this book as a teacher I can see lessons for preschoolers all the way up through biology class being tied into this book.

Lesson ideas from this book:

Study Acorns: Dissect one.

Who lives in a tree?  Who lives in the forest?

Circle of life.

What is an ecosystem?  Take it farther with notes from the afterword in Because of an Acorn and examine how that would effect the environment if one part of the system was changed (died off).

Do some Acorn Crafts for adults or kids (Thank you Pinterest!)

Some additional learning games for children:
Collect acorns or use some fake or wooden ones for counting, sorting, or markers for fall bingo

I know I have shared the Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game before, but our preschoolers really love this game and it goes so well with this book I have to share it again.  And check out the Acorn Soup game I found for children age 2:



A Seed Is Sleepy


Written by Dianna Hutts Aston
Illustrated by Sylvia Long

The very first thing to take me in with this book is the astounding detail in the illustrations!  Sylvia Long has done a fantastic job showing each seed, plant, the flowers, fruit, and leaves.  The colors are bold and brilliant and draw the reader in.

This book came highly recommended to me from a librarian who knows how much I love being outside and nature.  This is a book I get wrapped up in just studying it.  Each flower, and seed are labeled and the amount of information packed into this kids book really is amazing and makes it a book that any adult can pick up read and learn something new from.  We had lessons in science about the stages of seed growth in school, but I didn't learn the different parts of a seed.

Dianna has made a very diverse, non fictional book about seeds that's completely captivating.  I say diverse because there are (in my opinion) three different ways you can read it.  There is the main sentence "A seed is sleepy...A seed is..."  so if you have a group or a child with a shorter attention span you can just read it that way the build up to reading more in depth.  For my five year old daughter I read her the main sentence and the bold part that starts to explain what they mean by sleepy or thirsty.  Then there are longer paragraphs that go much farther in depth to talk about a certain seed which is really neat.

This is one book that isn't focused on fall.  It's a book you can read in the fall because many plants go to seed in the fall like the acorns falling or another way to look at it is that the seeds have grown and their fruit is ready or the seeds are ready to harvest.  This book would also be great to break out in the Spring  and read about seeds then and do your own grow kit.

No matter the season, I hope you take the time to look over both of these wonderful books and notice the small details in life.

Fun Fall Books

While I'm a warm weather person, I do love all that Autumn brings.  I love the fall foliage, pumpkin everything, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and I can still in the early half of the season enjoy all I love to do in the Summer as well.  The change of the seasons is magical.  Who, even as adults, doesn't enjoy looking at a landscape ablaze in colors?  For kids there are so many things to do and explore as the leaves fall and temperatures cool off, so to help you celebrate this season and have so much with activities to look forward to I've gathered a couple of fun Fall books.

Full Of Fall

by April Pully Sayre

This book is beautifully done. The vibrant cover photograph grabs your attention and pulls the reader right into the season.  I love April's use of alliteration throughout the book.  She is careful to not over do the alliteration but has rhymes mixed in and it's just a very simple yet eloquent way to say good-bye to summer and walk through fall foliage with children.  I love the vocabulary used!  This book while easy to keep the attention of very young kids I think it's a book that you can use for class with third graders still. It's a beautiful way to introduce talking about why leaves fall, why they change color and talk about what happens.  There's even a page that tells you about the parts of a leaf!  The book is educational but for all the lessons you can take from it, it's still a poetic and fun read.  This one is a must for the season for babies on up.

I love that April Pully Sayre has used photography instead of illustrations.  The images are vibrant, and as she says "Colors surge," though the entire book.  I love the crisp details!

At the end of the book there are two pages full of in depth information on why leaves are green, how they change colors, and a lot of science that is fascinating.  I learned more in those 2 pages then I did in school about this season.  For example did you know that while the leaves are changing color and dying they are actually still working for the tree?  They deconstruct chlorophyll and send back into the tree what nutrients the tree can reuse.

So while that book is more educational based but still simply fun to read my next two I'm sharing are books to help those who are just starting to read, Kindergartners, maybe some preschoolers who are doing sight words.

A Season of Sight Words "Fall"


Written by Shannon Penney
Illustrated by Lynne Avril

I did at one time 4 years ago have all 5 books, but now that my youngest is doing sight words in Kindergarten it seems that I'm missing 4 of them.  I'm tearing the house apart trying to find the others because she loves that she can read on her own to us now that she has a handful of sight words she knows.  Going on a Hayride is so far the only book in the set I can find and it's really great for those just starting to read.  This one focuses on the words "it," "yes," and "is."  These are very simple sentences of 3 to 5 words max, and that's throughout the set.  Each book in the set has it's own two main sight words that are in bold in the sentence and are repeated on each page so the child sees them, and reads them over and over to reinforce them in their memory.

The illustrations really brings the book together.  It is a picture book that you can see what is going on and that is key to helping children begin to use context clues in reading.

I think these are fun fall books because they have five favorite autumn activities: bonfires, hayrides, leaves, pumpkins, and football!  So for young children if you take one of these books to focus on each week you can talk all week about hayrides, have the child read the book each day and then on Friday (or if you're doing this at home) on the weekend go for a hayride and have your child tell you what they thought.  Have one week that's all pumpkin themed, and so on for each book.

Check out some of these sight word games you can add in as well:

Autumn Leaves Are Falling

Written by Maria Fleming
Illustrated by Melissa Sweet

This is another great beginning reader book.  It's a Level 1 aimed for preschool to first grade.  The sentences are simple, a step up from the Sight Word books but still very simple with a strong focus on those high frequency words.  You will see a lot of repetition still but with a bit more pages and words on each page.  As you can expect from the title the focus is on leaves falling and what you do with them.  You can start by asking your child what they think will happen in the book before you start reading.  It's great to have children predict what will happen, and start developing those hypothesis and context clues early on in reading so they will carry on as they grow.

A fun activity to do with this book would be to make your own leaf pile, have the kids help rake and jump in the leaves, then have them describe to you how they felt, and where were the leaves after jumping in.  As a child this was the highlight of the season was to see how big of a pile of leaves we could make.

My last book is just a funny picture book that is a blast to read aloud and I'm sure you can find so much to do with this from a preschool level up into intermediate school.

Fall Mixed Up

Written by Bob Raczka
Illustrated by Chad Cameron

This is a book that is sure to crack you up.  I dare you to try to read this with a straight face.  You won't be able to and the kid(s) you read to won't be able to keep from calling out that you're wrong about well everything mentioned in the book. It might take a minute...Are apples orange?  Wait a minute I know squirrels don't fly!  I love that Bob Raczka has taken all things having to do with Autumn and has twisted them around into a funny story that makes kids (and adults) think twice about what was just read and then picture this crazy alternative to how things really are.

Chad Cameron has done a great job on the illustrations in capturing fall as we know it and making this alternative world almost believable.  The illustrations are full of color and just as funny as the text.

There are so many fun activities you can do around Fall Mixed Up!  You can do the obvious and go through and point out all that is mixed up and tell what really happens for each.  Talk about what animals hibernate, and what other animals do instead?  Where does candy corn come from if it's not grown?  You can have your child(ren) do their own drawings of something crazy mixed up they think would be fun to see.

Ready for some more fall fun?  Check out some bucket list adventures you can do as a family:

80 ways to have Fall Family Fun

20 ideas for Toddlers this fall

Fall Bucket List 

I hope everyone gets out to enjoy the last couple summer days we have before Fall officially starts on Sunday! 

Let's go Camping!

Camping!!!

One of my family's favorite things to do when we have a couple day and nights to get away.  I think it's just extremely relaxing and rejuvenating to get out into the woods.  There are some wonderful camping supplies we have discovered over our years camping, and some great books to get your kids excited about a camping trip, some with some tips for camping, and some are just great books to share.  I know school is just about back in session but summer isn't over, and if you live in a warmer climate camping in the fall can be fun as well.  I really hope this post inspires you to pack up the family, invite some friends and go escape to no TV, less cell phone use, and exploring nature near you, and really roughing it.  Trust me after 3 days of no plumbing, you will savor that first hot shower you have!

Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping  by Melanie Watt

I love Melanie Watt books.  Just going to start with that, she writes funny stories for kids that teach them a lesson.  Scaredy Squirrel has a series and each is something I think kids can relate to.  Hey camping is a new experience, and you're asking the kids to leave their safe four walled house, TV, bed, and most of their stuffed animals and go outside someplace new.  I love that you can share this book with a child who hasn't gone camping, maybe hasn't even been hiking or spent much time in the woods and show them that it's OK to be afraid, but it's going to be a lot of fun.

To share some of the things that Scaredy Squirrel is afraid of:
Quicksand, bears, skunks, mosquitoes, penguins, and zippers.
This is a great opportunity to find out what your child(ren) is(are) afraid of and address those issues.  Write down their concerns and latter you can either research if you will have penguins where you're camping (more than likely not so don't worry), or what to do to if you will have things on the list that they are worried about.  Mosquitoes!  No one likes mosquitoes!  So be prepared on how to avoid being bitten.  We use candles, cat nip (when we remember to pack it), fly replers, and OFF.

Scaredy Squirrel has to leave his safe home and go on an adventure, so there's a page that shares his pack, and outfit.  This is great for you to talk about why he is bringing all of this and what you will need on your trip.  Get the kids involved in the prep work involved.

Our adventure squirrel makes a pan of action, and checks the weather and then he's off, when the unexpected happens! Scaredy panics and ends up going for a canoe ride and realizes that the outdoors is amazing and should be enjoyed.  I love how he overcomes his fear and all the parts that you can use to talk about your child's fear and what exciting things you will get to do.

 Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping is a great book to check out any time, but highly recommend for any first time campers to get them to address any anxiety they may have and to show them how fun and exciting camping is!

What Camping Can Teach Us: Life's Lessons Learned from the Great Outdoors

As you may notice there is not author or illustrator for this book, that's because it is a collection of quotes and stock images so in the credits there is a list of photos and the photographers who get credit for each photo.  Donnie Rubo designed the book and was published by Willow Creek Press.

I love quotes, so much so that I use to collect them in notebooks as a teen.  I still write down quotes that stand out to me.  This might mean that I'm partial to this book and want to share every quote in it with you (I really do, and it's painful not to), but the wonderful thing about a children's picture book that is only quotes is that it's not a journey of one person but a collection of revelations and thoughts of many and they are all relatable.  Each quote offers something for your family to talk about.  For example:

"It always rains on tents.  Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles against prevailing winds to rain on a tent." - Dave Berry

This quote is a great one to talk about before leaving on your trip.  What's the weather going to be? How are you going to be prepared for rain?   We have sent up camp, and broken down camp in the rain.  We have had our tent leak, or had to get up in the middle of the night to put the rain-fly on.  This is not fun while it's happening, but it is fun to look back on, laugh at and learn from for future trips.  Tip: we have learned that a large tarp helps with rain protection and offers shade.

Discussions are on each and every page of this 32 page book.  Talk about the beautiful photography of people camping, and wildlife.  What will you see?  What do you want to see most or not at all?  Take time to talk about past experiences and what you loved most as a child.

What Camping Can Teach Us is a book that is wonderful to get kids pumped to go into the Great Outdoors, and it's a wonderful one to read anytime and be nostalgic.


Now what are you going to do while you're camping?  Well I hope there are some fireflies out, and star gazing, and collecting wood for a campfire, singing songs, telling stories, cooking, reading, hiking, and relaxing.  There are hundreds of things to do while you're on a camping trip.  To help you out with some more ideas for your camping trip check out:

The Campfire Book


Written by Jane Drake and Ann Love
Illustrated by Heather Collins

This is the Pintrest for camping before there was Pinterest.  Published in 1998 there are some things in here that you might find dated or better ideas on Pinterest but this book is still a wonderful resource that you will want to get maybe over the winter to read though mark the pages and cross check online which of these traditional things you will want to do on your next camping trip.  This book will be a huge help in teaching children about how to build fires before you leave your house so they can be a help when you're out in the wood, collecting tinder and kindling and wood. Fire isn't something we think of now-a-days.  The stoves are either self lighting or electric, most fireplaces don't need to be started the slow way anymore, so if you have never built a campfire, check out chapter 1.
The Campfire Book moves on from how to build a fire and has many games, songs, stories, and even recipes. Looking for more campfire cooking books check out:



Usborne has many great nature books that you might want to check out or bring with you like:
Survival skills handbook  This is for kids 8-13 and goes over camping, dangers to spot, knots and more.  This is great.  We live in a world of comfort now, but what if they get lost on a hike, or there is some dooms day type of thing and they have to be out in the woods.  If it's something they are interested in why not learn together while you're camping practice some of the things from the book?
For the tiny tots what about a Nature Reference book?  You can look over what is in nature and when you go camping mark off what they find.

The moon rise

At night after the sun has set it's a whole new world watching the stars come out and gazing up.  One of the best parts about camping and being so far away from town, is that there is less light pollution so you see many more stars than normal (unless you're lucky and live out in the country).  My oldest has this great glow in the dark book:
The Glow in the Dark Night Sky

by Clint Hatchett
Illustrated by Stephen Marchesi

I'll be the first to admit, while I love looking up and seeing the night sky, I am probably the worst person to find constellations with, because I can only find the big dipper.  Therefore this is why I like this book, the kids can look and see what the constellations look like and go out and look for them on their own.  The book doesn't offer the full story behind each constellation, or many words for that matter.  It's a very simple and easy to follow star finder.  You look up what season you're in, and see what you can find.  On one side there are the constellations just with the stars and line and named, on the opposite page you see the same constellations with illustrations of the picture of them.  I like the illustrated side the best.  The cool factor of this book: take a flashlight shine it on the page you want to look at for a minute or two and then shut off all lights and see the page glow!  Now you can take the glowing page and look up at the sky and find that constellation and use the glowing book to help you!

If you're looking for more books about the night sky and constellations and space (because being under a big open sky is a great time to talk about space and all of this) check out these couple books:
What are Stars?

The moon at sunset

Big Book of Stars and Planets

I have one last fun book to read before camping, or to take along for a bedtime story:
The Berenstain Bears and the Ghost of the Forest

by Stan and Jan Berenstain
I grew up with The Berenstain Bears they are a classic series that I think have timeless lessons that all can relate to.  With this book, the little cubs go out on a camping trip but before they leave Papa bear tries to give them a scare by telling them about spooks out in the woods.  Well you know kids and of course they are going to now be on edge.  Papa came up with a plan to scare the kids, but their troop leader saw him and came up with a spooky surprise of her own and scares Papa Bear in front of the cubs.
I love this book.  It's one we break out for camping, and around Halloween because it's a all in good fun book that is about scaring each other and how there are no ghost out in the woods.  It's just a fun story to easy worried minds.

make shift sling 

I would like to leave you with some tips we have learned over the years and some memories of my own.  As you can tell camping and being out immersed in nature is something we as a family are passionate about.
* Be prepared for anything!  We went camping up in the middle of no where,took a 30 minute off road trail to get to the campsite, my oldest broke her arm!  Apparently this is a very common injury among children because my youngest fell and broke her arm this year!  The bone wasn't sticking out of the skin, there wasn't even a mark, but she was complaining of pain after falling on a log.  Make sure you pack Ibuprofen, and children's pain reliever, and Benadryl.  Tip: use a pill container to keep meds in a handy place in the First Aid kit that takes up less space than a bunch of small bottles.
*Camping with others is a lot of fun!  This past weekend we camped with 2 other families, there were 6 adults and 8 children.  We had a blast!  But camping with a large group take planning, make sure you plan out your meals, and find out who is going to bring what.

Three families camping together 

*Night time is the most fun camping, bring glow in the dark items.  Glow necklaces attached to children, and dogs will help you locate and count them!  Also glow in the dark balloons and light up balls are lots of fun to play with as are sparklers.
*Know where you are going and what there is to do, if you aren't going hiking or fishing, have things for the kids to play with because they don't relax the same as adults do, giving them a book and telling them to sit back and just relax isn't going to go well.  Games, cards, and travel dollhouses are some wonderful ideas.

*Food!  The Campfire Book had some good recipes and tips in there, we love pinterest and have done many foil packets that work out great! Also a sandwich press is fun and tasty, popcorn over a campfire was a new one we had this weekend that was a lot of fun.  A new favorite we have started is the smores cones with fruit!  They are delicious.  Tip: if you want the kids to go to be somewhat early, do smores or the cones for an afternoon snack instead of at night, or for them to have one before dinner while they are waiting for the food to cook.  Another Tip: eggs in a clean creamer container is most definitely the way to go!

*Don't forget the coffee

I'm using welding gloves to cook breakfast

*Welding gloves will save your hands! You can reach in and move logs that are burning, and touch all the hot cast iron while keeping your hands nice and safe!
*The tent you have really does matter!  We had a small one for years that worked when it was just my husband and I, and even when we had a baby, but with 4 of us it was too small, so we recently upgraded and the tent has the poles built in and a sun room area, it's one of the best things we bought for camping and has made set up and break down much less stressful and I'm in love with it!  So do yourself a favor and shop around and find the best tent for you there are plenty of options, also invest in a good camping mattress. And for hot summer nights the Coleman Cool fan is great to have!

our new tent! 

May your next family outing be a camping trip filled with some amazing adventures and wonderful memories!

Fireflies

There are so many wonderful things about summer and things to do this time of year that summer just flies by.  With all the running and get as much of summer activities in as you possible can type of crazy fast paced life that we are all experiencing it's nice to take the time to sit out and just enjoy a warm summer night.  One of my favorite things about summer nights has always been to watch fireflies.  I still enjoy spotting the flashing light of these neat insects.  So in the spirit of late summer nights under the stars I thought I'd share with you two lovely firefly books to enjoy with your little ones, and hopefully one dry night soon you can enjoy the silent natural light show of these bugs (which are actually beetles).

The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle


I found our copy of this book in a thrift store, and it was in rough shape.  It's an Eric Carle book! So I'm going with the family before loved the book a lot, the binding was well worn, the lights didn't work and there back cover had some of it missing, but I bought the book anyway because it was and Eric Carle book.  The same brilliant author/illustrator who wrote the classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Since we have owned this book, it has only received more love, and by love I mean it is literally falling apart from having been read so much.  One day far, far, in the future I will have to buy a new one to share with grand-kids.
Now about this book, the illustrations are classic Eric Carle in the colors, the brush strokes, and the geometric shapes.  The bold colors grab young children's attention and give them so much to look at and follow the story as you read to them.
The story itself is of a little firefly who is all alone, like the title suggest.  As he's searching for other lighting bugs he finds different light sources but then realizes that they aren't what he's looking for.  We follow this guy on his journey as he runs into a light bulb, flashlight, cars, eye, and then finally when all is quiet and dark again he finally finds other fireflies.  In the illustrations there's a sub-plot that is a family hearing a noise and going to see what's going on.
This is a book that we have found entertaining and makes you look forward to a summer night. 


Ten Flashing Fireflies


Written by Philemon Sturges
Illustrated by Anna Vojtech

This book brings me back to my own childhood and running around like crazy trying to catch lighting bugs.  Oh how fun that was on summer nights.
As the title implies this is a counting book.  I like that in this counting book you are counting both up and down at the same time so it's teaching children math.  There are 10 fireflies, as they catch each they add them up in the jar and subtract them from the field.  While the math isn't shown in numbers 10-1=9, that is the lesson that is taught.  Or I should say one of the lessons.  I love the different adjectives and verbs that Sturges uses to describe the fireflies light: burning, twinkling, flickering, blinking, and so on.  The use of different verbs, adjectives, adverbs are rich in picture books which helps develop a child's vocabulary.  The very last lesson in the book is probably the most important and relevant to the times right now, and that's to let what you capture free.  Collecting bugs and frogs, and the like is great for kids to have hands on experience and study and learn from nature, but each specimen that's caught needs to be let free.  The poor fireflies in the story are all in the jar and they stop being active or blinking, so the children let them free out into the night again.
The illustrations by Anna Vojtech are dark, they don't have bright saturated colors, but rather give you the feel of being out in the dark field at night.  The soft texture and muted colors capture the magic of summer nights.  I found it fun to look closely at the images and see that as the children are off trying to catch another lighting bug the jar is getting other animals visitors.  See if you children notice them while reading and you can talk about what it is.


Sadly my children don't have the same experience with fireflies as I did as a child and as is described in Ten Flashing Fireflies, in part it's because we don't live out in the country any more, but in larger part it's because their numbers are dwindling.  We still go out and enjoy camping and we still see fireflies but it's becoming more rare and they aren't nearly as plentiful as when I was growing up.

While I was putting this blog together I found fascinating information on the firefly!  If you would like to learn more about them please check out these sites:
Why Do Fireflies Glow? and how to attract them
National Geographic
Why Are Fireflies Disappearing?
NBC News: Dwindling Fireflies

Also some other books about them I have come across if you think you have a future entomologist in your mist check out these: