Peapod’s Picks

Peapod’s Picks is back for 2020, though with some minor changes.

It’ll still be a place to review the picture books we read at bedtime, and those we are sent to review, but will also include more of our ‘playtime reading’. Peapod loves his books and chooses to look at them often during the day, so I plan to bring this into these posts more.

He goes through spells where a particular book or type of book (flaps, sounds, animals…) becomes a favourite so we’ll look at those

I’m also planning to use these posts to talk about his ‘seasonal shelf’ and ‘story baskets’, both of which see a lot of action! This will still be mostly book based, but will also include some play activities we do.

I know not all of you have kids or are interested in younger picture/board books and play so I don’t expect everyone to want to read the ones that focus more on that, but hopefully they’ll be of interest to some!

Our Winter Seasonal Shelf

Yesterday saw Christmas removed from our house 😂 A bit early but with work and things this was the easiest day to get it packed away without it becoming a long and laborious task!

As well as taking down the tree etc, it meant changing Peapod’s seasonal shelf.

After a play in the snow in the kids play bit at our local ski and snowboard centre yesterday morning, Peapod woke from his nap to find snow had very much come home with us! (Really hoping for the real thing at some point too!)

On the shelves, we have a basket of white, sparkly and large woollen pom poms with two white wooden ‘string’ balls for contrast; a basket of blue and white feathers – a large boa and some bigger tickly ones; a snowflake sensory bottle; blue handbells and some stories and props of course!

• Dream Snow by Eric Carle We had this out over Christmas and it proved such a hit its staying! Peapod loves tipping all the animals and ‘snow’ out then matching the animals to the ones under the flaps and putting more ‘snow’ on them!

• The Snowman Puppet Book He was so taken with this! I’ll try to get a picture to add, but he thought it was so funny clapping with snowman and giving him a hug and kisses!

• Kipper’s Snowy Day by Mick Inkpen and Kipper toy He’s really enjoyed having a selection of Kipper books upstairs with the Kipper he can ‘tuck in’ to the book box basket, so I’ve brought him down for a bit!

• One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth and woodland creatures Peapod loves his woodland animals, so I’ve brought them down to use with one of my favourite snowy stories! We also have a Percy puppet on the way!

• Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and soft toy penguin We’ve not read this together yet, but he loves this penguin and always gives it big hugs!

He also has a basket of winter books, which he started exploring straight away with his dad then excitedly took me to see when he saw me!

In the basket so far are the following…

We also had some wintery sensory play yesterday with glittery oats to scoop and pour (he LOVES scooping, filling and emptying!)

And his big cardboard box has had a wintery transformation too (though he currently doesn’t like going in it, so not sure if this will make it any more appealing!)

I’ll probably do another post or two as we read the books, start to use it all and add to the shelf, but this is what we’re starting with!

What wintery books or activities would you add?

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