By Shelly Bokman

Does your child have a favorite story? My oldest son loved Anatole by Eve Titus, the story of a French mouse who snuck into a cheese factory each night. He knew it word for word—if I was tired and tried to skip a page, he would promptly call me on it! I’m sure you have few stories like that at your house. Why not stretch those books into even more fun and learning for your child? Here are some suggestions:

• Read <b>Strega Nona by Tomie</b> dePaola, then use different pasta shapes to make a collage. Or, cook a big pot of pasta like Strega Nona and invite some friends over to share it (maybe not the whole town like she did, but a few).

• Read <b>Blueberries for Sal</b> by Robert McCloskey and bake blueberry muffins. You could even take a bucket on a walk to collect something, like Sal did—leaves, acorns, pebbles…

• Read <b>The Carrot Seed</b> by Ruth Krauss and plant some seeds of your own. You can also follow carrot recipes—salad, cake...

• Of course, you’ll want to read <b>If You Give a Mouse a Cookie</b> by Laura Joffe Numeroff before you and your child bake some delicious cookies of your own.

• Gather inexpensive little rubber ducks. They will be great fun to play with in the sandbox after reading the story <b>Make Way for Ducklings</b> by Robert McCloskey. Try to memorize all the names of the ducklings, it’s a great lesson in rhyming.

• <b>Corduroy</b> by Don Freeman tells the story of a bear who lost his button. It’s the perfect invitation to count and sort buttons. Collect a basket of large buttons (too big for little ones to choke on) and help your child sort them by color, then by size. Count them; put them in sets of twos, threes, etc. String them with yarn or a shoestring. Hide them around the room and let your child hunt for them.

Look at the stories you have, and see how you can stretch them into other activities that your child will enjoy.