Summer Reading Fun: Curious George

My kids love Curious George books! We've read quite a few, but my favorite are the original H.A. Rey books that started it all. I decided to base this week's reading play group around the original Curious George book.

Unfortunately, we got so busy having fun that somehow I managed to forget to take a single picture. I've made up for this where I could with pictures from my files, and I'll make sure there are links leading you to the sites I took my inspiration from so that you can see these ideas in action.

For our play dough I gave the kids some green play dough, along with some toy monkeys and some leaves and flowers leftover from our garden theme.

After we read our book, we did this cute hand print craft with the kids. It turned out really cute, I can't believe I don't have one around here somewhere to take a picture of!

For our gross motor play we blew up a whole package of balloons for the kids to play with. Just like George, the kids LOVE balloons! Balloon free play is one of the quickest, easiest, least messy ways I know to keep kids occupied.

For our sensory play we did a rice bin. I have 50 lbs of rice that I keep handy for just such occasions. We added the monkeys and plants from our play dough fun, as well as all the digging/scooping toys I could find.

My original plan for the sensory play was to recreate George's ocean voyage by filling a kiddie pool with water and adding toy boats, monkeys, sea shells, etc. It was way too hot to play outside that day though, so we improvised and used the rice instead. The kids didn't know any better and they had a marvelous time!

For our snack I kept things simple with bananas. Easy Peasy!

I always try to have several books on hand that fit in with our theme. Click on the image below to go to Amazon and learn more about each book. Here's this week's book list:

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.