Hands On Learning Story Time on YouTube

Hands on Learning Story Time is LIVE on YouTube. My new channel is a kid-safe place for your children to explore. It is full of fun stories and activities that are sure to entertain your learners.

The books presented are for ages 3 through 10. The themed activities and crafts are fun for kids of all ages. So far on the channel we have the following books and crafts:

PLAY! by Veronica Stanley-Hooper

This fun story is written for children from 3-7 years old. The storyline focuses on a typical day of play as told through a child’s perspective. With a focus on social-emotional intelligence and careers, each character describes how they play and how it makes them feel. The diverse characters offer reflections of all children within the pages of this entertaining story.
Download a FREE lesson plan to go with this book below!

Want to buy this book for your child’s library? (It is FULL of fun ideas for play! When your child says, “I’m bored,” you can pull out this book and explore a lot of choices for fun things to play! The links for purchase options are below:

Buy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3wN0Sgc
Buy on Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/3g2KJ0e
Buy on OakieBees: https://oakiebees.com/products/play

Cobweb Capers by Dr. J.E. McGee

The ‘Cobweb Capers’ stories show these little guys (spiders) are full of personality, much like the cats and dogs we share our homes with! They include AJ, the athletic spider, who can run faster than most of the male spiders in the area, Clay, the naughty spider, Marley, the sensible spider, Mirabelle, the creative spider, and Orson, the poetic spider who only speaks in rhyme.
This collection of stories is written for students ages 5-8 years old.

Want to buy this book for your learners?
Link to Paperback book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2P05Xju
30% of the royalties of the book are donated to Bug Life an invertebrate charity

Mincemeat and the Incredible Train Ride by Lois Davis

Meet Mincemeat: a kind, devoted and human-sized ginger cat, who lives with Great-Grandma in the village of Howdoyoudo. Mincemeat loves sewing, dancing and his motorbike. But not as much as he loves baking! He and Great-Grandma embark on all kinds of crazy adventures – like their journey to visit Aunt Petunia. Zayn is a locomotive with a secret dream. To become an express train! When he makes that dream a reality, can his driver, Berkeley Butterfingers, do anything to avert a catastrophe?

Want to buy this book for your children?
Link to book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3vL7tqZ
Here’s the video to the second part of Mincemeat and the Incredible Train Ride

Goo on My Shoe by Jacqui Shepard

This fun rhyming story is sure to entertain your children. It’s a story about a child who finds some GOO on the bottom of his new shoes. He tries a lot of things, but finds there is only one person that can help….MOM!

Want to buy a copy of this fun story for your child?
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082DMQ9WV

If you like fun crafts and a few minutes to yourself, SUBSCRIBE and LIKE Hands on Learning Story Time on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/c/Handsonlearning4allg/

Remember to leave a comment below with a story suggestion for Hands on Learning Story Time!

Cute and Easy River Rock Garden Turtles

Handsonlearning4all

My teenager and her friends LOVE to make crafts when they are together. This river rock garden turtle craft was so much fun for them to make. It is so easy it can be done by kids of any age!

Materials needed:

6 River rocks for every turtle (Round rocks are best for the head and body, while oblong rocks are best for the flippers.)
Acrylic paint (various colors- we used green, black, white, and blue)
Clear spray paint (If you plan on putting these little guys outdoors the clear paint really helps with weathering.)
Water
Brushes

We just put our paint onto some paper plates and got to work. Little squares on the rock that is used for the back of the turtle really make it look like a turtle. Dots on the flippers added texture. Getting creative and having fun is MOST important with this craft so let your inner sea turtle out and explore other options! You can test out ideas on a separate piece of paper by tracing your rocks onto paper and painting the paper turtle first. Spray your freshly painted, dry turtles with the clear spray paint if you want to display it outdoors!

These little guys just made our summer outdoor area feel more ‘beachy’! We love them! I can totally see these little guys on the counter in an ocean themed bathroom too!

Arts and Crafts: Chinese Lantern

Chinese Lanterns

Today we learned about Genghis Khan. We wanted to do an arts and crafts project, but let’s face it Genghis Khan wasn’t an ‘artsy craftsy’ fellow so, we decided to work off of the Chinese portion of the lesson and make some Chinese Lanterns.

I was surprised by the excitement of my children toward this simple craft! So I wanted to share this lesson with you.

Materials: (makes one lantern)
1, 11″x18″ piece of construction paper
1 Chop stick
2 pieces of string (approximately 18″ each)
Masking Tape
1 Flameless tea light

Preparing the paper:

First we took a standard 11″x18″ piece of construction paper and folded it in half ‘hot dog’ style.

Then we measured with our rulers and marked off 1″ increments along the long edge of the paper.

We made an additional line at the opposite side of our markings along the entire edge about 1″ in from the edge. (This would be the place to stop cutting.)

Finally we cut straight lines from our measured markings to the ‘stop line’.

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Assembly:
We opened up the folded paper and curled the opened paper into the lantern shape. Then stapled the two short ends of the construction paper together at the top and the bottom of the lantern.

We cut one small strip of paper and fastened it across the bottom of the lantern to hold our candles. (flameless tea lights)

We stapled the strings to the top of our lantern and attached them to a stick with tape.

That’s it. My children took their finished lanterns into a darkened room and bounced them up and down. They both remarked how much the finished lanterns looked like ‘jellyfish’ with the tea lights reflecting inside.

With Chinese New Year coming up I thought this activity also would be fun to share with some of our book club friends too. I hope your children enjoy this craft as much as mine did.

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