Mama Pea Pod: {Stars Book and Simple Star Craft}

Stars Book and Activities:

Book by Mary Lyn Ray and Marla Frazee

We borrowed this book from our school library and had such a hard time returning it that, ahem, we may have hogged it for most of the school year! Full of hope and wisdom, this sweet, inspiring book helps children to embrace their creativity by noticing the stars all around us (not only the ones in the sky), and to use them to gain strength when they need it.

Stars activities

Sweet Pea's favourite song is Twinkle, Twinkle, which we must sing every night before bed. She decided that it would help her sleep better if she had her very own Twinkle Twinkle Star in her room to watch over her and keep the bad dreams away (she also has a dream catcher and Gruffalo toy [affiliate link] for this purpose, but they must not work all that well since she often visits us in the night!)

So we made her very own Twinkle Twinkle Star!

You need:

Some stiff cardboard

Some aluminum foil

Some Sharpie markers

Shiny ribbon

A sharp pencil

Optional: printable star template

I just drew a star freehand (it took a few tries to get the shape I wanted, but no matter). Then I cut it out for her and poked a hole in one of the points with the sharp pencil.

I gave Sweet Pea some squares of tin foil and she wrapped her star. Then she used the permanent markers to draw on the foil. She wanted a face on hers, smiling down at her in the night, but you could decorate it any way you like. (You could also add some stick-on 'jewels' for extra bling, like in these tin foil trees from Happy Hooligans.)

Then I used the pencil to repoke the hole through the foil (not sure that it was really necessary to do it twice, it might have sufficed to just do it after it was wrapped), and then strung some shiny ribbon through it to hang up.

She's so proud of it!

It would also make a lovely Christmas decoration for the tree, or make it a 6-pointed star and you have a Hanukah craft for little ones.

Some more Stars to Make:

Stars to Eat:

Stars to 'Do':

Have your own Japanese Star Festival

Stars to Read:

Starfish (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science) [affiliate link] - another one we borrowed from the library, and we learned so much about the stars in our seas and oceans - and it has a fun starfish craft in the back that we made but I never got around to blogging about. Maybe one day...
How to Catch a Star [affiliate link] by the ever-popular Oliver Jeffers. We haven't read this one yet, but it's on our wish list.