This wednesday, believe it or not, is International Mud Day! What better theme for our weekly book choices then than MUD and muckiness?! I was surprised just how many books I had to choose from this week. Clearly messiness is a popular theme for picture books (I wonder why!)
This book was one of Cakie’s first ever books and she loved it so much that she chewed up the cardboard cut-out baby that comes with it! The cut out fits into the spaces on each page and is a fun addition to a simple, enjoyable book about how a baby gets SO messy during his day. Very relatable for Mums and plenty of fun!
This book is ancient and was one of our most favourite books to share with our Reception class children (ages 4-5.) It is the simple, repetitive tale of some naughty animals that jump into the mud and have to be washed in a big, metal bath by the vigorous Mrs Wishy Washy! “In went the cow, wishy washy wishy washy.” I don’t actually own a copy of this, but we are doing it from memory using animals and a bucket of water instead!
This glorious story is perfect for a muddy theme! One poor duck gets stuck and all his friends come to help, but one by one they fall in too. It’s great for counting up to 10 and for predicting what will come next.
I love the uniqueness of this story! It’s all about a little potato called Joe who has great fun with his friends in all weathers, then finally gets buried deep beneath the soil where he starts to grow. It shows a really nice perspective of what happens under the ground and explains what the earth is used for. It is rhyming and set out to the rhythm of “one potato, two potato, three potato, four.”
What a great focus: mud! There are so many seemingly simple little wonders in Nature, each of which rises to the level of importance we bring to it. This is the kind of wonder we need to reclaim — for our kids and for ourselves.
Keep up the great work, Anna!