One of the bestselling children’s books of all time is “Goodnight Moon.” When I was still working in a specialty bookstore I remember going through this book and finding it “okay.” As a twenty-something single professional, I remember asking myself “Why would parents buy this book?” But when I first read it to my son, even before we started using Before Five in a Row (BFIAR), he instantly loved it for its simplicity and bold colors! Now I know why! Since the BFIAR selection features two Margaret Wise Brown books, “Goodnight Moon” and “Runaway Bunny,” we decided to row them together! 🙂
“Goodnight Moon” is a lovely story with beautiful rhymes and pictures illustrated with bright colors. It’s about a little bunny saying goodnight to different things in their house. Our Bible verse that week was about sleep and learning that it was God who gave it to us. I needed to be reminded of this, too! We also talked about the importance of rest for our bodies. 🙂
On the other hand, “Runaway Bunny” is delightful tale of a little bunny trying to runaway from his mother bunny. But no matter where he goes, his mommy finds a way to be with him. When he imagined himself to be a boat, his mom became the wind that helped him sail. Such a heartwarming story! I took this opportunity to talk to Timmy about love and obedience. 🙂 We also read other bunny tales to go along with our BFIAR stories.
“Knuffle Bunny” is also about a lost bunny toy and how the main character Trixie tried hard to find it. Her dad had to go through piles of laundry just to find Knuffle Bunny. It was in a way similar to the “Runaway Bunny.” 🙂
Art
In both books, there were black and white pages and colored ones. I asked Timmy to paint anything using the most prominent colors in the book—red, green, and orange. He came up with these! 🙂
I also asked Timmy to draw shapes using a black pen only then asked him to try it again using different colors. We did this for him to understand what contrast looks like. He told me that he liked drawing the colored shapes more. 🙂
We also did a very basic mosaic art by drawing lines that cross over each other and coloring the spaces between! His works was actually more refined that the sample I did! In this artwork, we were able to explore the contrast between black and white and colored spaces. 🙂
Math
Using the prominent red and green colors in the books, I created a pattern exercise for Timmy. He also did a simple grouping activity by placing the greater numbers on the bigger bunny column and the lesser numbers on the smaller bunny column. Please excuse my lame rabbit drawing. 🙂 This was one of those moments when I was just too lazy to open my laptop and print anything. Haha!
Hope you’ll enjoy rowing “Goodnight Moon” and “Runaway Bunny” as much as we did! For more ideas, check out our other Before Five in a Row posts and letter of the week activities! Thanks for reading and see you in my next blog! ?
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