Book of the week: The Invisible String by Patrice Karst.
Synopsis: A mother tells her two children that they're all connected by an invisible string. "That's impossible!" the children insist, but still they want to know more: "What kind of string?" The answer is the simple truth that binds us all: An Invisible String made of love. Even though you can't see it with your eyes, you can feel it deep in your heart, and know that you are always connected to the ones you love.
Does everybody have an Invisible String? How far does it reach? Does it ever go away? This heartwarming picture book for all ages explores questions about the intangible yet unbreakable connections between us, and opens up deeper conversations about love.
Parents, educators, therapists, and social workers alike have declared The Invisible String the perfect tool for coping with all kinds of separation anxiety, loss, and grief.
Weekly Activity: Considering our theme this week was based around love and affection we decided to make a heart shaped bird feeder to show love towards our feathered friends, a card for someone special and a painted cobble stone to give as a gift to someone special.
To make our bird feeders we used either a sparkly pipe cleaner or craft wire and threaded lots of multigrain hoops onto it. We twisted the ends together to close the loop and then bent it into a heart shape. The children tied a piece of ribbon in a loop at the top so they could take it home and hang somewhere for the birds to eat from.
For the cards the children folded some brightly coloured card in half, drew a heart shape in the middle of the front page and used scissors to cut out the heart shape. They re-attached the cut out heart with tape, sometimes also using a sparkly pipe cleaner so it made an interesting hanging heart picture. They decorated their cards and wrote special messages inside to give to someone special.
We sourced some large, bright white cobble stones for our next activity. First the stones had to be washed to remove any grit or dirt from them and we left them to air dry. We put some brushes and paints out and suggested the children either paint hearts on their stones (for the older children) or painted a lovely coloured pattern (for the younger ones).
With the leftover multigrain hoops we put out a number chart on one of the play trays and did some fun number work by asking the children to place the correct number of hoops on each number.
Through the use of various resources (primarily nature based) the goal was for the children to create Valentine’s Day gifts and a card. This promoted all areas of learning and development and encouraged thoughtfulness, love and kindness to others as well to animals and nature.
Home Activity: Family Hand Print Tree.
All you need to do for this very effective and beautiful keepsake is to paint a tree shape on a sheet of paper or card and then get mucky by asking each member of your family to do a hand print that will resemble the leaves of a tree (see picture below for an example).
Extension: Encourage your child's writing skills by asking them to write each persons name next to their hand print (for older children) or the first letter of each name (for the younger ones).
