Dum ditty dum.

Biziggity book club day.

Today I chose a book that we’ve had since forever in board book form, and I only recently discovered that the regular book version has extra pages. Say whaaaaat? It’s like the extended cut! Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins. A fun little rhymey book with a sort of Dr. Suessy vibe. Just a bunch of monkeys. Playing drums and picking plums, with rings on fingers and rings on thumbs, strumming banjos and humming hums.

First up- instruments. Namely, drums and kazoos. I had rounded up a bunch of coffee cans and such, so we just busted out the smocks and paint and let them have at it. I had less choices for paint color than I would have liked, because this morning I went to pull out the paint and I couldn’t find it. Which is what happens when your craft supply storage area looks like this-

as mine currently does. Next big project should probably be shelving in the office closet.

Anywho.

I did find a little bit of paint, and the kids didn’t seem to mind that we were using the dregs of the paint left over from our butterfly feeder that we made last summer.

While we were all good and painty, we also painted some toilet paper tubes to make the kazoos. I poked some holes in the tubes with a meat thermometer, then cut up some small pieces of wax paper and we secured them to the tops of the tubes with rubber bands. (This morning I had a brief moment of panic, thinking I had no rubber bands in the house and wtf how will we ever make kazoooooos?!?!?! And then I remembered that we are the proud owners of a Rainbow Loom, which means we have approximately 87 kajillion tiny rubber bands in the house. In a wide variety of colors, no less!) Done and done.

I did have a second craft project, but our crowd today was getting a bit antsy after just the painting, and gah it’s so nice out, so we decided to all escape to the backyard for some runaround time. Once the instruments dried, we brought those out and added them into the mix. Big hit. Even Bianca was able to get the “do do do doooooo” right to make the kazoo buzz.

They all worked up quite an appetite, so I brought out the snack, inspired by the “Hand picks an apple, hand picks a plum” page of the book. Except when Nate went out to the store the other day, they told him that Safeway doesn’t carry plums. I don’t possess much knowledge about fruits, so maybe they’re not in season? Annnnyway, we made do with hand picks an apple, hand picks a chocolate chip banana muffin. Because the book is about monkeys, and monkeys like bananas…shut up. It totally works.

After all the friends went home, my little craft-crazy kiddos ended up doing the third project I’d thought up, based off the “rings on fingers, rings on thumb” bit. Super simple. Trace your hand, color it in, and glue on some sequins to looks like rings. Amazing what will keep these kids occupied.

And yes. My kitchen floor is now covered in sequins. It’s a very festive atmosphere.