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To Dogs, With Love by Maria Gianferrari and illustrated by Ishaa Lobo, is a sweet thank you to our four-legged companions that give us so much. This book reminds readers of the unique healing that dogs bring to the life of a child as pets and as therapy animals. Dogs bring comfort to classrooms, hospitals, legal settings, prisons–any setting where children face challenges and benefit from the “calm and connected” presence of the enduring devotion of humankind’s best friend.
To celebrate the publication of To Dogs, With Love, I created a cardboard roll craft. After all, toilet paper rolls are ubiquitous in every household! I had fun fashioning dog faces inspired by Ishaa’s adorable illustrations and figuring out ways to make therapy dog vests and little wheels for a two-legged friend. Here are directions for a kid-friendly version of these cardboard creations:
Materials:
Cardboard rolls
Cardstock or construction paper in different colors
Paint or markers
Scissors
Glue stick and hot glue
Directions:
Dog face: On cardstock, draw a heart-shaped face and cut out. Draw and cut out tear-shaped or pointy ears. Position and use glue stick ti adhere ears to your doggy head.
Dog body: trim the cardboard roll to the length that you want. Decorate your dog’s body (cardboard roll) with paint or markers.
Tail and legs: Cut out two strips from a different cardboard roll. These strong, curled pieces will become the legs that can support the body. Fold the end of each strips to make feet. You can cut out a tail from the same roll or from cardstock.
Put it all together: This requires an adult and hot glue! Adhere all the pieces to make your new canine companion.
For Maria Gianferrari, dog love is the most pawsitive medicine of all! To Dogs, with Love is Maria’s seventh book featuring beloved canine characters, following Being a Dog: A Tail of Mindfulness, Operation Rescue Dog, Hello Goodbye Dog, Officer Katz and Houndini, and the Penny & Jelly series.
Ishaa Lobo is the illustrator of The Mystery of the Love List by Sarah Glenn Marsh; To Dogs, with Love byMaria Gianferrari; and There’s Always Room for One More by Robyn McGrath. Her next book, Bigfoot’s Big Heart, written by Sarah Glenn Marsh, will be released next year. See her work at ishaalobo.com.
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Fungi Grow by Maria Gianferrari and illustrated by Diana Sudyka is a delightful homage to the funny, fantastic world of mushrooms. Maria’s winsome rhymes and fascinating factoids, matched with Diana’s dreamy, mulchy paintings are as delightful as a walk in the woods and as surprising as spotting a Red Chanterelle!
Inspired by Fungi Grow, this Mushroom House craft uses all of my favorite ingredients: whimsy, simplicity and recyclables! I pilfered the recycling bin for a mix of cardboard textures, and that classic craft mainstay–the cardboard toilet paper roll (no one ever runs out of these.)
MATERIALS:
Cardboard toilet paper roll
Cardstock paper (or cereal box-cardboard)
Scissors
Hot-glue gun or glue stick
Paint
Optional: cupcake liners, coffee filters, corks, whole-punched paper, origami paper, textured cardboard odds and ends–get silly and creative!
DIRECTIONS:
With scissors, cut a curved “door” at the base of your toilet paper roll (leaving one side attached to serve as the “hinge.”
For the mushroom cap, cut out a circle of your card stock or cereal box cardboard (or any paper of your choice). Circles can be lopsided and imperfect. Start big and trim smaller as desired.
Cut one slit to the center of your circle. This will allow you to overlap the paper and create your cap.
If you are using card stock or cardboard, use hot glue to adhere (adults only). Thinner paper will hold with glue stick. Confused about this bit? Watch the video below:
5. Glue the mushroom cap to its stem. 6. Now is the time to paint! Let it get messy. Add bits of paper, buttons, beads–bedazzle! 7. Finally, invite little critters to move inside. . .
Which mushrooms are real?
Maria Gianferrari’s yard is full of fungi. From branching corals and pointy stinkhorns to smoky puffballs and colorful jack-o’-lanterns, everything’s coming up mushrooms! Someday she hopes to find some morels—she’ll even share them with a squirrel. Maria’s favorite edible mushroom is the hearty portobello. She lives in Massachusetts.Diana Sudyka grew up hearing stories of her grandfather, an ardent forager, bringing home chicken of the woods and maitake mushrooms for meals. Her favorite edible mushroom is the delicious morel that popped up in her yard last spring. Diana lives with her family in Evanston, Illinois.
The BOOK GIVEAWAY is now closed. The winner has been notified. Congratulations!
PROJECT: Make a moving puppy puppet with fasteners!
How do we learn to savor the present, untroubled by the past, unworried about the future? In this delightful, meditative book, author Maria Gianferrari shows it’s as simple as being like a dog: “Stretch while you rise. Wag your body. Greet the day and everyone you love.” Being A Dog is a perfect read-aloud for littles, who will love mirroring the motions of the sweet pup illustrated by Pete Oswald.
To celebrate this book publication, I wanted to create something full of movement: something that will wag, romp, nap, munch, sniff and stretch just like our canine hero. Why not a moving pup-pet with fasteners that allow for pouncing paws and a thumping tail?
The Book Giveaway is closed. Our winner is Josie Clark-Trippodo! Congratulations, Josie! Enjoy this beautiful book.
“Be a tree. Stand tall. Stretch your branches to the sun.” Maria Gianferrari’s beautiful picture book begins with a simple metaphor that extends and expands, connecting the ecology of trees to a message about interconnectedness and our human responsibility to care for, build and sustain our communities. The illustrations by Felicita Salas are delightful. On a page with text that reads: “Your skin is bark; dead on the outside, protecting what’s within,” Salas adds a detail of matching tattoos–a heart inked on a grandfather’s forearm with a twin heart carved into the trunk of a tree.
To mark the publication of BE A TREE, I wanted to create a variation of that perennial school project, the Family Tree–but one that would celebrate the circles of community that kids experience in their lives instead of ancestry. Not all children know or live with biological relatives–but all of them have important people who matter to them. So, introducing . . . the TREE RINGS PROJECT!
Block printing with organic materials (because: trees) is a perfect pair for this project, filled with texture and messiness. Who doesn’t love a puddle of glue, paint, and the surprise of lifting up a print you made to see the result? If it’s too glue-y for you, you can also create a Tree Rings Project using markers and crayons with concentric circle shapes to trace.
Tree Rings Project
MATERIALS
Flat piece of cardboard (you can cut out a side of a cardboard box)
Yarn
White glue
Tempera or acrylic paint
Scissors
Brayer (printmaking roller) or paintbrush
Paper (I used 50% recycled construction paper)
INSTRUCTIONS
Trace or draw concentric circles on cardboard. We had fun running around the house gathering cups, bowls and other round objects to trace. Your circles can be lopsided–the rings of a tree certainly are!
Cut pieces of yarn that fit your circles.
Now for the gluey, messy bit: squeeze a line of glue along your traced circles. Or, for smaller hands, pour a puddle of glue and use a popsicle stick to spread it on thick!
Lay the yarn on your circles and let dry.
Painting time! Once your block is dry, use a paintbrush or brayer to spread paint over the yarn.
Turn it upside down on paper; press evenly.
Lift carefully: you printed your tree rings!
Now for Step 8, the most important part . . . start at the middle of your tree ring and think about the place where you feel the most comfortable. It might be home or maybe school. In this central place, jot down the people there that help you grow strong. People you can count on and who can count on you. Move out to your next tree ring. This ring can represent another comfortable place–a grandparent’s house, a neighbor’s house, your after-school group. Who are your “people” there? Add them to your tree ring. Move your way out, considering other places and groups that help you or that you would like to help–the local animal rescue group or a community garden, for example. And voila! You’ve made your circles of community–your personal Tree Rings!
* Teens and grown-ups who don’t want to be left out of the fun but want more of a challenge: try creating a block print of wood grain. My attempt is pictured above and below. I free-handed the design, starting with interspersed spirals (knots of wood) and then adding lines of yarn (wood grain) around them.
To learn more about author Maria Gianferrari (pictured below “being a tree”), go to mariagianferrari.com. You can find illustrator Felicita Sala at felicitasala.com.
Updated: The winner of the book giveaway is Sarah E. of Massachusetts. Congratulations, Sarah! You will receive a copy of Hello Goodbye Dog very soon.
The principal at my elementary school knew Bowzer well. My beloved mutt hated goodbyes and followed me to school, preferring the many hellos of the kids in the playground. Bowzer was sent home, to bark maniacally at the mailman and wait not-so-patiently for the school day’s end.
Zara and her dog Moose also suffer the pangs of daylong separation in Maria Gianferrari’s lovely picture book Hello Goodbye Dog. For Moose, hello is a “ride in the car” and a “pat on the head,” while goodbye feels like an “itch that cannot be scratched” and “a closing door.” After Moose makes mayhem in the school cafeteria one day, Zara provides a perfect–and unexpected–solution. Train Moose to be a therapy reading dog! Now Moose go to school, too, and turn reading into a cozy, furry experience for Zara and her classmates.
To celebrate this little gem of a book (illustrated by Patrice Barton and brought into being by Roaring Brook Press), I created an easy bookmark project that honors both reading & puppy power! Your finished bookmark will slip onto the corner of the page & hold your place so your copy of Hello Goodbye Dog won’t get dog-eared.
What you need:
5.76″ x 5.76″ origami paper
Scissors
Black pen
Glue stick
Step 1: Fold the origami paper as shown in the slideshow below.
Step 2: Once you have a triangle shape, cut the bottom point into two rounded points to make the dog’s snout.
Step 3: Cut out the nose (a small rounded triangle), ears, and tongue shapes in colors of your choice. You can freehand or use this template for the ears and tongue.
Step 4: Glue the nose in place. Adhere the ears into the pocket at the top of the triangle. I folded the ears at a slight angle to give the puppy a rakish look!
Step 5: Trim the tongue so that you can insert it into the opening at the snout end of your triangle. Dab with glue so that you can press it into place.
Step 6: Draw eyes and other details with your black pen. Voila! A dog-eared bookmark!
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Also, if you are in New England this August, Maria and therapy dog Brig will be presenting Hello, Goodbye Dog at the Toadstool Book Shop in Keene, NH August 20 at 11 a.m.
The blog tour of Hello Goodbye Dog continues . . . check out these sites:
homemadecity.com 