For as far back as I can remember, I have always loved reading. Books provide a chance to imagine yourself in situations that you can often only dream about. Where you can step into someone else’s shoes, travel the world and tickle your senses. So from the moment I fell pregnant, I knew that I wanted to pass on this same love of reading to my children.
I am constantly on the look out for new and inspiring children’s books so when I came across the beans&sparks club, a monthly book subscription club for children, the big kid in me let out a little squeal. I love snuggling up and reading with my girls, and we are especially fond of personalised books – there’s something really empowering about seeing characters that look like you. All I had to do was create an avatar that looked like P, my eldest, on the beans&sparks website and the personalised book arrived within a few days!
We were lucky enough to be gifted this month’s book and had a lot of fun exploring the ‘adventure’ theme. Beans&sparks books are designed to cover all early years skills and at the end of each story there’s a sweet message addressed to your child to encourage them to explore the monthly theme further.
Thankfully P has loved listening to and sharing books since she was a tiny dot, so now that she is learning to read herself, I often set her a few fun and creative tasks post-reading.
I thought I would share a few examples of the sort of reading activities that usually engage her well:
Make a Puppet!
Here, we cut out the character from the envelope that the book was delivered in to make a puppet.
We’ve read the story a few times since receiving it and P has enjoyed following along with her puppet, acting out some of the scenes.
Draw!
P is obsessed with drawing at the moment. I’m pretty sure she hands me at least five a day! So it was no surprise when she handed me a drawing that had been inspired by the story.
Write a Speech Bubble!
As it is the Summer holiday, I am always finding meaningful opportunities for her to practise writing, so I drew a speech bubble and asked her to think about what her puppet might say and write it down.
Be a Tricky Word Detective!
Another engaging activity is to be tricky word detectives. Here, I wrote out the tricky word ‘she’. P then had to hunt for the word in the story. She loves being a detective!
If you like the idea of having personalised picture books posted out to you every month then head over to the beans&sparks Club where they are currently offering 50% off your first book! Plus when you subscribe, your child will earn a reward badge for every story that they feature in! Who doesn’t like a reward every now and then?!
Have you found the ideas in this post useful? Please share if you have.
We would love to know what your most favourite reading activity is! Feel free to leave a comment below!
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