I blogged last week about my visit to the public libraries to get ideas for babysitting packs for our students. I’m going to observe a toddler club at South Bank library tomorrow and I’m quite excited to see the activities they do. In order to make the packs as fun and appealing to pre-schoolers as possible, I’m asking for your help and in return I will offer you the chance to win a book of your choice from a selection sitting in my spare bedroom!
You need to enter via the Rafflecopter widget below, the only mandatory entry is a blog comment because this is where I want your ideas! I’d like you to recommend a good book for preschoolers, ideally to suit ages two to five, if you have any little hidden gems that you know then they would be perfect; The Gruffalo is great but I’d love to widen my picture book horizons a bit. I would also like your ideas for any games or activities you think would match your book well. For example, if I were to choose The Tale of Georgie Grub then I might include a little doll and a bathtub as well as an activity such as a drawing of a boy to colour in and make him look dirty like Georgie.
I’d love it if you could follow me on Twitter and tweet about the competition too but they are not mandatory entries. In return for picking your brains I will offer the winner a choice of one of the following books (not strictly new, but only read once.) Scroll past the Rafflecopter widget for the list. a Rafflecopter giveaway 
The Light Years-Elizabeth Howard
The Crying Tree – Naseem Rakha
The Almost Moon – Alice Sebold
Red Dust Road – Jackie Kay
Elsewhens – Melanie Rawn
The Land of Decoration – Grace McCleen
Broken Harbour – Tana French
The Corporal’s Wife – Gerald Seymour
The Glass Bird Girl – Esme Kerr
Kind of Cruel – Sophie Hannah
The Language of Flowers – Vanessa Diffenbaugh
The Winter Dark – Tim Winton
Daughters of Jerusalem – Charlotte Mendelson
Thornlost – Melanie Rawn
The Saturday Supper Club – Amy Bratley
The Blair Years – Alastair Campbell
Losing my Virginity – Richard Branson
Touchstone – Melanie Rawn
Zero Cool
Odds On
Drug of Choice
The Venom Business – All Michael Crichton
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to enter and give me ideas for my babysitting packs! I will blog later on when I am creating the packs and give credit to the people whose ideas I used. Good luck everyone!
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to enter and give me ideas for my babysitting packs! I will blog later on when I am creating the packs and give credit to the people whose ideas I used. Good luck everyone!
libraryfanatic 
I would write a book about little sea creatures trying to get back to the sea & a board game to match.
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I like the idea, I’m not writing the book though. That would be far too much work! I guess maybe an Octonauts book would work for this idea and perhaps a matching activity with cards. Maybe find all the blue fish, then all the red fish and so on?
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The Wheels on the bus is great for pre school children and then make your own bus with some dining chairs. Dolls and teddies can be the passengers.
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I like that idea, thanks Karen!
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Dr Seuss Green eggs and Ham is great, and there are loads of recipes for Green eggs online – you could spend an afternoon finding and making Green eggs and Ham yourselves and getting everyone to try it!
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I didn’t know that green eggs were a real thing, I’ll have to check this out!
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Going on a Bear Hunt – could be combined with a nature walk to try & find a bear!
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This is a lovely idea! For an inside variation perhaps we could include a teddy bear and the game could be to hide it and go on a teddy bear hunt.
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Definitely tldiary of a winpy kid but if they are in pre k, they need something with more pictures. A good game could be using chalk and drawing favorite book characters
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We could put chalk in the bags, maybe there’s a picture book out there about a child who likes to draw?
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Aliens love Underpants, really funny book, game could be like snap where you ‘snap’ matching underpants. Also colouring sheet where they could design and colour their own underpants. Tiger who Came to Tea, include china teaset, tiger and doll to act out story, perhaps a story sequencing game. The National Literacy Trust has premade games based on picture books, they also have one which can be completed with your own questions etc. Here is the link; http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/search/119?qr=story+game&tags=
We have travelling bags in our infant classes, which sound similar. I make the bags and decorate them then include a picture book, game and perhaps jigsaw but also a small book to allow for comments, room for children to draw something but also to scribe their comments. Hope this is useful.
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Thanks so much, that is really helpful!
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Took me ages to find out how to comment! (The home page doesn’t show comments, for some reason you have to click through to an individual post to comment. WHY IS INTERNET). But! When Luka was pre-school he loved Room on the Broom (pretend broom-flying ensued), and The Elephant and the Bad Baby (which can be teamed with various sorts of treats if you’re up for the post-sugar fallout).
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I’ve never heard of The Elephant and the Bad Baby, what’s the theme / moral?
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Dear Zoo and then animal sounds – always fun
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Maybe a matching activity, match the sound to the animal.
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Elmer the elephant counting book – A great activity to go with this would be to use the matching characters to count out each one.
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I’ve never actually looked through an Elmer book before but I love their bright covers.
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The Hungry Caterpillar – For very young children just pretending to be a caterpillar & then becoming a butterfly
You could expand this to discus health and wildlife and more when suitable
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I hadn’t thought about this book but it would work on a healthy food vs not healthy food level too.
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Goldilocks & the 3 bears, kids could pretend to be goldilocks or one the the 3 bears.
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I’m thinking the traditional tales might be the way to go, they all have a moral to them which is good.
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I like the Farmyard Tale books for my lil boy. He loves trying to find the duck on each page. As an activity I do with him, I then hide a rubber duck we have at home and we play ‘Hot or Cold’ trying to find it. 🙂
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That sounds like a really cute activity.
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