I originally wrote about this craft for a guest post I did at Imagination Soup. Melissa, creator of Imagination Soup, has kindly agreed for me to publish this activity here so that I can share it with my readers.
We are huge Oliver Jeffers fans in our home. His sweet, simple stories of friendship and adventure are timeless, and his illustrations are beautiful. Whether it be the tale of friendship in Lost and Found, the fantastic adventure of The Incredible Book Eating Boy, the poignancy of The Heart and the Bottle, or the hilarious Stuck, we love them all. We read How to Catch a Star and The Way Back Home almost daily.
Since we also love creating small world play scenes, (such as our frog pond, dinosaur island and dinosaur jungle), we thought it would be fun to create a small world based on Lost and Found. Lost and Found is the story of a young boy who one day discovers a penguin on his doorstep. The boy decides that he must help return the penguin to his proper home, and they share an adventurous journey to the South Pole. The boy soon discovers however, that the penguin is not lost but lonely, and a friendship is born.
My goal whenever we create one of these play scenes, is to only use items that we already have in the house. It’s all about using your imagination and making use of what you have on hand. Here is what we created…
We used a large plastic container (the same one we use for our solar system sensory tub) to contain everything so this was a kind of small world/sensory tub hybrid! The ocean was made from blue and green coloured rice which added a wonderful sensory element. I’ll post a tutorial for coloured rice soon but it’s pretty simple. Add uncooked rice into a zip lock back, add a few drops of food coloring and a teaspoon of rubbing alcohol (optional). Zip the bag closed and shake it so that the color spreads evenly through the rice. Leave the rice to dry and then it’s ready to use. Easy!
R (4) had great fun recreating scenes from the book like this one, where the boy and penguin miss each other on either side of an iceberg, the boy sailing in his boat, the penguin in the upturned umbrella. The icebergs were made from pieces of styrofoam which we decorated with pale blue glitter paint to make them “snowy”. The umbrella was simply a cupcake case that we coloured orange and yellow to match the one in the book with a pipe cleaner bent into a “J” shape for the handle.
The two adventurers travel through night and day, storms and sunshine on their way to the South Pole. We made one side of the tub a stormy night, one side a starry night and a third side was a cloudy blue sky. For the stormy night we used black cardboard, painted on some rain with white paint, and stuck on some silver pipe cleaners for the lightning. For the blue sky we added silver star stickers for the night and cotton balls for the clouds.
One of my favourite parts of our play scene was the “Welcome to the South Pole” sign. The “legs” of the sign were made using toothpicks which we coloured red using a permanent marker. The sign was simply yellow and red paper glued together and decorated with gold glitter. The sweet little penguin was made using a styrofoam egg which we had left over from our Easter crafts. I cut the bottom off the egg to make the base flat, ensuring our lovely penguin didn’t keep tumbling off the edge of the iceberg and into the cold ocean! We painted him black, with his tummy left white except for a small orange line of paint on his chest. Scraps of orange paper were glued on for his feet and beak. Add a couple of googly eyes and you’re done!
We a tiny suitcase from a lego set for the boy’s suitcase. The boat was made from a small milk carton. We cut one side off, washed it, and painted it white with a red stripe around the edge. Easy! We used popsicle sticks to make the oars and glued on some brown paper with white stripes painted on them for the paddles.
Which just leaves the boy. He’s made from a toilet paper roll. He was very simple to paint – even for a non artist like me who can’t draw to save myself. That’s the beauty of Oliver Jeffers’ illustrations – they are so delightfully sweet and simple, making them easily adaptable for a craft project like this one. The boy’s hat was also much simpler to create than it looks. We tore off a small piece of paper napkin, wrapped it around the top of the TP roll, then tied it with a rubber band to make the pom pom.
This small world scene really brought the book to life and was such a fun way to encourage R’s love of reading. It was beautiful to watch his imagination run riot and this type of activity boosts his language and story telling skills as well. It was a truly lovely way for R and I to spend time together – creating, imagining and learning.
What’s your favourite Oliver Jeffers book?
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Ness, this is an absolutely beautiful play scene. I love the bright colors and how true it is to the book! You were so incredibly creative. Please link this up to The Children’s Bookshelf so that I can feature it next week. x http://www.notwiddletwaddle.com/2012/10/free-kids-ebook-list-childrens-bookshelf.html
Thank you Bethany! I love your linky and I’m so excited to finally have something to link up.
Oh, this is absolutely adorable! I can’t decide if I love the boy (especially the tuque) or the penguin more!
Thank you Eddie! I think the tuque is one of my favourite bits too.
We love that book and had a boy and penguin craft a while back too. But I love that you made the boat and umbrella and everything else too. BRILLIANT!
Thank you for sharing on Kids Get Crafty!
Maggy
Absolutely adorable!
How lovely! I’ll try making some of these with my little boy – we are both big fans of Oliver Jeffers – the “pop-up book” version of lost and found is amazing!
This is so cute! Jeffers is one of our favorite authors. My kids love his book, Stuck! Thanks for linking up to The Children’s Bookshelf.
I love this book and your small world play is absolutely spot on! How creative and beautifully crafted! I just can’t believe how cute and “realistic” it looks!
I love your small world set ups. They are so adorable and always make me want to play too!
This small world is BRILLIANT. Not only does it allow children to re-tell/re-create the story and extend the story behind the final page. BUT
there is so much involved in preparing the small world- it gives children the opportunity to think about the story and the illustrations…….and use their imaginations.
Thanks for sharing on The Children’s Bookshelf.
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What a great way to explore this story
I love your small world play, and we love making small worlds to enjoy here too!
This small world is absolutely adorable! I just love activities that are linked or inspired by books! Thanks for sharing!
I just loved this when I saw it on Pinterest. It visually represents the picture book so well. You are so creative!
Adorable!!
Ness- the world you created is fantastic!!! Oh how my children would LOVE such a little world of their own. And yes, Oliver Jeffers is the best- he’s a children’s lit genius! OK- I must make something like this happen at my house… you’ve got me thinking!
How absolutely adorable and i’m sure all worth the work that went into it! Such imagination and creativity….thanks for sharing Ness…lots of inspiration here!
This is absolutely brilliant! Always looking for new, fun ideas for making books come to life! We recently picked up A Mango in the Hand by Antonio Sacre, it is written in proverbs which inspire many conversations at book time! Not to mention his illustrations have Spanish and English captions. This we go with and around the house we practice a little Spanish and caption our household items! We picked it up at antoniosacre.com. Thanks for this idea, I just wish I was more crafty to make it look this good!
This is amazing ! I love it! And haven’t seen this book before but sounds delightful!
I love this SO much! I’ve not seen that book, but I love that you created this small world play out of so many recyclable materials! It looks like it was a huge hit! Thank you for sharing at the Sunday Showcase! I’ll be featuring this post tomorrow!
I love this SO much! I’ve not seen that book, but I love that you created this small world play out of so many recyclable materials! It looks like it was a huge hit! Thank you for sharing at the Sunday Showcase! I’ll be featuring this post tomorrow! Pop over to grab a button!
Thanks for sharing on Tuesday Tots! I featured your post on In Lieu of Preschool: http://www.inlieuofpreschool.com/2012/11/books-plus-creativity-on-Tuesday-Tots-linky.html Off to pin now! Feel free to stop by and grab a featured button!
Hi
A friend sent me a link to your blog as she knew I had just finished with a project about the story Lost and found with a Kindergarten class! I love your ideas! This is going to sound quite mad, but I had this idea to make big blocks of ice and the children made two play dough penguins and then they slid one of the penguins down the ice! They loved it and there were great hoots of laughter as the penguins slid down the ice. As they started to get quite sloppy they through them away and played with their second penguin on blocks of foam! I am off to see what other stories come to life this way
Thanks for sharing
Sue
This book was one of the first that I recommended on my blog – I love the idea of making landscapes for books. Thanks for a great idea
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