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Kids trying new things: Activity ideas with I Love Books

It’s that time of the month again when we release a new book within the Shelf Care Club, and this month, we are sharing the I Love Books eBook for free with all our members, so come along and join us today below! This is a gorgeous book all about reading – and kids trying new things, so we have put a set of activity sheets together all about both of those concepts. This is a great World Book Day activity, or emotional development activity for kids. It’s also loads of fun anytime of year too!

This book is a homage to reading – it shares the story of a girl who thinks that she hates it but…

Illustration of a child with glasses and wild hair, looking annoyed, with scattered books, a curious cat, and "I Hate Love Books" crossed out.

I Love Books

Brought to you by the writer for “Flooded” and “Lost,” comes a gorgeous tale that inspires reading in your children. With its vibrant illustrations and captivating storyline, this book is a treasure for little ones who are yet to find their love for reading, whisking them away to a realm where words weave magic. We follow a young girl as she counts down the moments to freedom from school. But just as she’s about to embrace her holiday, she’s faced with what seems like the dullest task of all – reading an entire book! To her, books are just dreary stacks of paper.

However, her adventure begins when her sister introduces her to the local library, promising a surprise that might just change her mind. The book is a heartwarming reminder that sometimes, all it takes is one story to turn “I Hate Books” into “I Love Books,” leaving a lasting love for reading that will accompany your kids throughout their lives. There is very much a lesson in there on embracing the new, even if you are afraid of it.

We appreciate that it is particularly hard for those with neurodivergent brains to do new things. Take this activity pack slowly, and adapt to your child. It is designed as supportive, and to help children to think about when they have overcome worries in the past.

We have taken this of the idea of kids trying new things and being surprised how it feels into the activity sheets, and combined it with the creativity of writing a story.

Promotional image for a children's "I Love Books Activity Pack" with pencils, origami, a notepad, and activity sheets encouraging trying new things. Download now button visible.

I Love Books activity pack

This is an 18-page pack that we have designed with a few different themes in mind:

  • Colouring pages from the book itself,
  • Making your own board game, visit our turkey game, make your own board game, and christmas board game for inspiration,
  • Giving something a go that you think you won’t like,
  • Being afraid of trying new things,
  • Your favourite book, and
  • Exploring your very own book idea.

Let’s introduce you to the pages within the activity pack first:

Colouring pages for I Love Books

We have picked three pages from the book for your colouring activities this month:

  • Our first one is the cover page – which we do always like to give you. Get your children to create their own designs, or use the cover for ideas,
  • Our second page shows our character fighting pirates within the book to help get the ingredients for her magic spell. What do your children think the pirates might look like?
  • Finally, the main character crosses this chasm to collect more ingredients – there is a dragon chasing – why not help your children to draw their own dragons in this colouring page, as we seemed to have missed them? 😉

Making a board game

Our final colouring page looks a little bit like a map and / or a game. So we are challenging our children’s readers to make their own game in a similar style.

If your kids don’t like this idea – how about they think about a magical place, and make a map for it instead?

Giving something a go you think won’t be good…

The girl in the book doesn’t want to read a whole book, but in the end loved it. We are asking kids who have read the story to think about where this has happened in their lives, and how it effected how they felt. This is a great way of building resilience. Sometimes we think we know what something is going to be like, and then it isn’t. Thinking something doesn’t make that something a fact! This is a key thing for kids to learn from a young age.

Thoughts aren’t facts, they are just thoughts.

Kids trying new things experiencing fear and anxiety

For this set of worksheets / activities we are focusing on encouraging kids to think about how they do new and hard things. Both ideas that also encourage resilience – it is important to realise that for those with neurodivergent brains, that gentle, low demand approaches work well. If this isn’t something they are interested, clearly it is more than OK to move on.

These three sheets explain how to work with them, and then choose 5 things that helps you when your children are next going to do something new, alongside drawing a picture of doing something new. Perhaps your children can think about something, and draw how they felt, or what they did?

Books fun

Our final four pages are all focused on getting kids imaginations running wild after they have been reading the book. They can think about what their favourite book is, a great idea for a World Book Day activity of course. Alongside this think about what they might like to write about too, and even get started on a story. If they aren’t sure about how to start thinking about story ideas, why not sure our article on story prompts for kids to help them out?

To get access to this activity pack, click on the button or the image below:

To get the eBook – you need to sign up to our Shelf Care Book Club of course, which you can do so by filling out the form below:

Don’t forget to check out some of the other activity sheets we have had in the book club too – and the books that we have featured. They are well worth a look at retrospectively as well. Here is a selection from 2023, but you can view all of them within our Amazon Shop as well.

Selection of 2023 Shelf Care Books

Here are some of the other books we have featured with activity sheets in the Shelf Care club in 2023. Check out the ideas and activities, and buy the books if you like them!

Thanks as always for coming to see us, and don’t forget to check out all our wonderful resources, including our other printables and bingo card generator for kids too!

Take care,

Helen
Promotional image for a kids' activity download titled "TRYING NEW THINGS FOR KIDS" to accompany a book called I LOVE BOOKS. Features worksheets, a blue background, and scattered toys.

Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine! Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time. KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10. It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania. Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on. Get in touch TODAY!

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