This week’s craft was inspired by our “Holiday @ Home” holidays… as part of this, we visited a brand new beach about 1.5hrs drive from here – we had never been and it was a FABULOUS day out with friends. Lots of running around. Jumping into dunes. Getting covered in sand.WONDERFUL. What was quite special too, is that Red Ted now “knows what a beach is” and when at the end of the day, I dragged this book out for him again, he understood it that little bit better:
The Red Book, Barbara Lehman. We had already seen this reviewed by Playing by the Book and LOVED the sound of it (Zoe is much better at reviewing books, so do read her review too!). This book is a book without words. So it is brilliant for our bilingual family, as I can “read it in German” and The Englishman in, well, English! Also wonderful for “getting into” story telling as the pictures serve as a great prompt! So, I digress.
The book is about a little boy who finds a Red Book on his way to school. He can’t wait to take a look. He opens the book and sees a map. The next page shows the map in close up: an island. The next page he sees a beach (aha, here comes the link to our post today). On that beach is a boy…. reading… a book. A Red Book, that he found on the beach. And as he closes in on the Red Beach Book, the city boy sees himself! Oh! The two boys connect through their respective books and then embark on an adventure… and find each other. The Red Books are left behind for new people to discover them and connect. This is a lovely story of friendship described through pictures alone. Fabulous.
Interestingly, in Zoe’s review and she describes the city boy as a girl! Goes to show, how you make the story your very own…
The Kid’s Craft – Beach Art & Stone Painting
I have been wanting to take part in beach art ever since Nature Get Crafty where I linked to a worldwide beach project hosted by the V&A. Shortly after this Jude from Artful Adventure also submitted an article about Beach Art in Summer Get Crafty. So off we went and collected lots of stones. I (!) couldn’t wait. Red Ted loved collecting stones with The Englishman and they came back to our “patch in the sand dunes” with two buckets full.
We sorted the stones into colour piles. They looked gorgeous. At this point one of the children emptied all the remaining water that was in the bucket into the sand. Never mind, I thought. But actually, mind we did. The stones quickly got covered in “sticky” sand and there wasn’t much to do with them. *sigh*. So we collected them again (having made a face) and took them home for painting.
Much better!
And once Red Ted had painted some, we played with some googly eyes. (Note: the googly eye playing wasn’t until 1-2 days later, i.e. the paint may take a little while to dry!). I put blutack on the back and together we explored the different expression ONE stone could make, just by the placement of eyes. Quite amazing really. Here is our Ghost Stone and our Yellow Stone in different poses!! Just moving the googly eyes apart creates significant change!!
Here are the “Ghost Stones” – perfect for Halloween?
For more Kid’s Craft look here or here.
Linking up with 
What others are reading
Toilet Paper Roll Giraffe Marionette
Autumn Leaf Marionette Birds
Story+ Art = Great stART- Oliver Jeffers – The Way Back Home
Kids Crafts: Stick Man
Kids Crafts – Making Apple Prints a Little Easier
40+ Autumn Crafts
Great stART: Piep Piep Piep or making watches with toddlers
Hooray for Fish – Footprint Fish for Kids
aah very interesting! Yes, I’ve always assumed the first character was a girl, but maybe that’s because I’ve got two girls I read the story to…
Your day at the beach looks beautiful – the photo jumping over the sand dunes is particularly lovely.
Thank you Zoe! Yes, was thinking the same – you have your girls and we have our boy – and that really influenced how we read the story! Very interesting!!! And, my, you are up early and commenting 😉 I only posted this 1 hour ago on scheduled post and this it’s 7:30am!! I guess that is what happens when one has kids!!!
Jusyt love those pebble people! When we meet up. I would like one please!
I like the pebble people, we are also huge fans of beach art!
Love your stone photos and the different emotions made just by moving the eyes… I wrote about stone emotions the other day – you might want to take a look and add the link to this post in the comments? http://littlesheep-learning.blogspot.com/2010/08/emotions.html
Oh Elaine! I LOVE your post on emotions, what a great idea!!! Especially since our stone people have different emotions depending on where the google eyes go… will have to emphasise that bit a bit more to Red Ted! Great post! Have commented and linked 🙂
Maggy
Absolutely love the stones! Very cute!!! :O)
Ow Maggy, the photos are absolutely fab! I like them all:-)) xo
Looks like you all had a lot of fun. The stones look great!
you went to the beach!!!!
Yes and we had the BESTEST day ever! So lucky too, as only day that week that was sunny and without rain. Can’t wait to go again! x
Oh those are CUTE! My son would love a rock collection like that!!
I hope you’ll come participate in my link party today! It runs all week so come back and add more BOY projects! All About The Boy @ The Nifty Nest!
Liz
All the different poses are neat. Who knew that moving the eyes could change the appearance so much? We love wordless books and haven’t read the one you mentioned. Thanks for the recommendation.
Gorgeous beach shot! Looks like you both had fun with googly eyes! Fun activity. 🙂
What fun! I love all the characters you created with the stones.
We used to paint stones with my Nana when we were little. That was before the days of googly eyes mind! Unless she was just being too tight to buy them!
Love your beach photos, really gorgeous.
So much fun on your stay-cation. Love the googly eye stones.
Oh those googly eyes made me smile! What a cute idea! Thanks for the book recommendation, too!
Mari-Ann 🙂
We did have fun with them, until Red Ted wanted to stick them on his face, lost one and Pip Squeak found it and tried to eat it…oh the fun with children under 3!
Your pictures are beautiful! I love to see what my kids can make with rocks. Great book too!
Thank you!
i featured you today 🙂
So cute! I love all the poses 🙂
love the pebble photos. skipping at the beach sounds like so long ago…..brrr here.
never heard of red book. will look iit up.x
What fun! Love the goofy eyed stones!
It is wonderful that they gathered the rock themselves. They came out so cute!
Those turned out so cute and it looks like they had so much fun at the beach!
Looks like the kids had a blast. Love the googly eyes on the rock critters.
What a cute craft!
Cute idea – my daughter would love this.
Cute idea, a displayed collection of these is a fun (cheap) idea!
Yes! Definitely a cheap option!! And much fun!
fun!
I remember painting “pet rocks” when I was a kid!
That is what childhood memories are made of!!! 🙂
Those are absolutely gorgeous pictures from the beach, the sky is SO blue! Your stone photoshoot is hysterical, and you’re right there do seem to be different expressions and emotions depending on eye placement.
The photos of your children are beautiful – the sky is amazing!
I’ve been meaning to stick google eyes on nature stuff with the girls all summer and now summer is gone!! Like the ghosts!!
Then stick them on autumn crafts.. lots of stick people and cone people and chestnuts… 😉
What fun!
Thats the second time I have clicked on a cool picture in a link community (this time The play academy) and its taken me to Red Tent Arts. Nice one. Love the googley eye stones.
I do like these stones with googlie eyes.thanks
Go check out Mediocre Mum! Her pebbles are FABULOUS 🙂