The Sandcastle Contest and a Sandcastle

momstown's literacy partner, Scholastic Canada, generously provides us with a book each month to share with our group. Scholastic Canada selects books that are related to momstown's educational theme for the month. For this month's theme, "At the Beach", The Sandcastle Contest by Robert Munsch was chosen. It's hard for me to think of a Robert Munsch book that I don't love, but The Sandcastle Contest has always been one of my personal favourites, and a favourite of the little people in my life. Like most Robert Munsch books, it is a kid pleasing mix of repetition, silliness, familiarity, and surprise. You can read a full review of the book here. Be forewarned though: reading the book may result in the urge to build a sandcastle of your own!

Since there are not a lot of beaches in Calgary with sand to build sandcastles on, we got creative and crafted our castles out of sandpaper. This is a great craft to do with a group of children of varying ages. Even the tiniest tots can help with gluing and constructing the castles, and working with sandpaper is also a wonderful sensory experience for toddlers and preschoolers. Since the craft is based on basic shapes like squares and triangles, shape recognition and early math skills are also reinforced. Plus, it's fun!

Sandpaper Sandcastles

Here's What You Need:

• Blue, tan and black coloured construction paper, as well as a few scraps of construction paper in other colours
• Sandpaper, cut into a large square, two smaller rectangles, and two triangles
• Liquid Glue
• A marker or crayon
• Scissors (depending on age of children)

Instructions:

1. Cut a wide, wavy strip of blue construction paper. This will be your water. Glue it to the top of a sheet of tan construction paper.
2. Build your sandcastle by arranging and gluing the sandpaper shapes onto the tan construction paper.
3. Cut an arch shape out of black construction paper, and glue onto your sandcastle to form the door.
4. Cut out a triangle from a scrap of coloured construction paper, and glue it just above your sandcastle to form a flag. Connect the flag to the sandcastle with a marker or crayon.
5. Enjoy your beach experience at home!

We've had so much fun with our "At the Beach" theme this month. Join us in August for crafts, stories, songs and fun focused on the theme of "Music". We're looking forward to making some noise with you!