We Like to Read - World Book Day!

This Friday 5 March is World Book Day, where children all over the world dress up as a character from a book. I love this day! Personally, I love seeing kids in fancy dress going about everyday business as if it's totally normal to be dressed as a fireman, or a frog. So seeing loads of children heading off to school in the morning in fancy dress is guaranteed to bring a smile to my face. Look out for them where you are!

Wiss has discovered the joy of Roald Dahl over the last year or so; we've read him some of the books and he has lots of them on cd which he listens to over and over. A particular favourite is Fantastic Mr Fox (and the Wes Anderson animated film is fantastic too!) It seems I'm not organised enough to make the costume AND blog about it so here is last years' costume in detail: last year Wiss wanted to be Fantastic Mr Fox, and who was I was I to argue?!

The great thing about costumes is they can be as fancy, or not, as you wish. They only really have to last that day (although it's always nice if they can be worn again.) If like me, you leave things to the last minute then make friends with fabrics like fleece and felt. These can simply be cut and don't need hemming as they do not fray. Jersey doesn't fray either and the raw edge can be...well, edgy!

Our Fantastic Mr Fox costume was made using some soft striped orange jersey, white and black fleece, two old t-shirts (one white, one orange) and a tie from the charity shop. To make the hat I used this great tutorial from Camelot Fabrics - it is clear and easy to follow but you can alter it where you like. I thought buttons may be good as the eyes?

The raglan t-shirt was made using my favourite pattern from Sewing for Boys. I've made so many of these for Wiss that they come together super quickly, but even for a beginner it is an easy pattern to follow. I cut up my two old t-shirts to make usable pieces of fabric. The white t-shirt was the body and the orange t-shirt fabric was used for the arms and the neck binding. I added black claws to the top cuff edge of each sleeve before sewing them together. The tie was a lucky find and all I did was shorten it to fit Wiss and hand sew an old hair clip to the back so that it could clip on to the t-shirt. No fiddly ties for my little man!

The trousers are models own - orange cords from H&M - as are the brown boots - Clarks.

And the finishing touch was the tail. I used the same tutorial from Camelot Fabrics but made it removable with a loop to go around the belt which fastened with a strip of velcro. Poor Mr Fox has his beautiful tail shot off by the nasty farmers, so true to the story Wiss could take his tail off when he wanted. (It also made it easier to sit down at pre-school!)

So there you have it - one Fantastic Mr Fox costume!

This year's costume is also from a Roald Dahl book so look out for it on my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds on Friday (I had better get it finished soon!) I would LOVE to see your kids costumes for World Book Day - leave a comment below if you've blogged about it, or tweet me @thisiswiss. And if you're still making them like me, good luck!


You may also like to read these posts from the archive:

World Book Day Week - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
World Book Day 2013 - Room on the Broom

We Like To Read - The First Hippo on the Moon

'The First Hippo on the Moon' is the latest childrens' book from David Walliams. Who doesn't love David Walliams? He is super talented in many ways (even open water swimming!) and it appears that he knows just what kids like too.

This is the story of two Hippopotamuses who share the same dream: to be the first hippopotamus on the moon! But they go about it in very different ways.

Wiss really loved this book - he asked me to read it again immediately after we finished, and we've read it repeatedly over the last three days too. It's got all the key elements: a good story (with a lovely moral to 'dream big'), lots of fun (Wiss liked the two porcupines best) and a good helping of toilet humour as well (bottoms, poo and farts!) The wonderful illustrations are by Tony Ross and they really bring the story to life.

I found some of the language tricky (hippo-po-rocket for instance!) but Wiss really liked the silliness and repetitiveness of these words. This book was a huge hit in our house and I will definitely be tracking down Walliams' other book for young children.

You can buy this book by clicking here or why not enter my competition to win one?

If you would like the chance to win a copy of 'The First Hippo on the Moon' for yourself then use the RaffleCopter below to enter. The competition will be closing on Monday 1 December. The winner will be announced and they will receive their copy in time for Christmas.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of the book for free so we could review it, but all opinions are our own. We really did love it! Wiss is nearly 5 years old but I think that it would still appeal to older and slightly younger children.

We Like to Read - Where The Wild Things Are - #HeinzPastaQuotes

This month's We Like to Read post is a little unusual to say the least! Not quite a book review, but I'm sure everyone is familiar with Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak already.

It was Children's Book Week between 30 June and 4 July and to celebrate Heinz teamed up with Tots100 to invite bloggers to get creative with their Alphabetti and spell out their favourite quotation from a children's book. Regular readers will know how much I enjoy great kids' books so I couldn't wait to get involved, but it was hard to choose just one quote when there are so many wonderful books and so many poignant phrases.

My favourites include Alice in Wonderland and Oh The Places You'll Go! whereas Wiss adores all of the Julia Donaldson books, but a firm favourite of both of us is Where The Wild Things Are. It's a beautiful story, with gorgeous illustrations and actually very few words, but for me, that makes it even more special.

It was great fun (and surprisingly hard) to fish around and find the right letters we needed, and of course we ate the rest of the tin on toast afterwards! Unfortunately, it seems that Max had a bit of a rumpus in the Alphabetti!

Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak #HeinzPastaQuotes

This blog post is an entry into the Tots100/Heinz competition to support Children’s Book Week. There is still time if you would like to join in, and all the details and other entries can be found here.

We Like to Read - When I Was Born

We Like to Read - I bought this book as a way of getting Wiss ready for the arrival of the new baby. Written by Isobel Minhos Martins, it shows just how far the character in the story has come since he was born.

"When I was born...I had never seen anything....I didn't know what the sea was..."

It's a really lovely way to gently show the older child the difference between them and a baby, but it works equally well even if there is no younger sibling. It's a great celebration of all the things a child has learnt so far, and will continue to discover each day.

The graphic illustrations by Madalena Matoso are brilliant (as you'd expect from a Tate book) I love the bold colours against the black pages. And of course Wiss was over the moon with the giraffe poo image!

As usual, these We Like to Read posts are part of a bigger picture over on Tigerlilly Quinn. Pop over to check out Fritha's weekly suggestions for great kids books, and if you've got one to recommend too then why not link up?

We Like to Read - Welcome to Mamoko

Welcome to Mamoko by Aleksandra & Daniel Mizielinski is a fantastic book but I struggled with whether I should include it in the 'We Like to Read' series as the story isn't actually written; there are very few words and the 'reader' is encouraged to make up the story themselves. But it is such an original book, and a firm favourite in our house I wanted to share it.

 

The first pages of the book introduce you to a whole range of characters, with amazing names such as Olaf Brown, Claude Van Clue, Cecily Beak and Edwin Drench. The following pages are crammed full of fab illustrations, almost like 'Where's Wally' or 'Find Foxy' from Okido. The idea is to pick a character from the front and then search and follow them throughout the book to discover what their story is. Each one intertwines with others, and there is something new to notice each time. We have literally spent hours looking at this book and Wiss even loves to read it by himself too.

 

 

There is a new book out too, 'Mamoko in the Year 3000' which is definitely on our wish list!

This post will be linking up with Tigerlilly Quinn so please do check out all the other great books recommended in this series and I'll be back with another book tip next month!

We Like to Read - 1 to 20 Animals a Plenty

Welcome to my first monthly 'We Like to Read' post!

I'm linking up with Fritha from Tigerlilly Quinn, and other bloggers to share what books are popular with our little ones this week (or month!) I love children's books and am always on the hunt for original and wonderful titles so I'm looking forward to getting inspiration myself from this series.

'1 to 20 Animals a Plenty' is by Katie Viggers (published by Eightbear) I bought this book from Katie herself at a Crafty Fox Market in Brixton, but you can buy online too. I loved the illustrations - fun but not cutesy at all - and it was an immediate hit with Wiss. The simple rhyming text is very catchy but we like the fact that she has not gone for the obvious: how many other books have capybaras in them?! There are also many different breeds of the same animal: '9 cats in matching hats' even features a Maine Coon, like our cat Raoul! 

The last pages show all of the animals stacked up from 1 to 20, and Wiss enjoys listing them all from memory. It's a bedtime favourite for us!

If you want more inspiration, don't forget to head over to Tigerlilly Quinn, where there are weekly posts. I'll be back next week with a 'Work in Progress' update...