For week 2 of my Spring Book Series, we’re going to bust out our flashlights and dig in the dirt! Let’s have some fun while we check out this awesome book…Shine-A-Light: Secrets Of The Vegetable Garden!
The Shine-A-Light series is a huge favorite in our house! The book is a great non-fiction book that provides kids with an abundance of info and facts. The unique part of this book is that a flashlight is used to reveal concealed images. Super cool right? I don’t know about you but I’ve never met a child that didn’t love a flashlight!
Secrets of the Vegetable Garden focuses on the spring season and learning “behind the scenes” secrets!
The book is filled with colored pages but are black and white on the back. While looking at a colored page, a flashlight is held underneath. Images appear through each colored page to reveal what is hidden. My daughter loved to work her way through the book and reveal all of the secret objects. The best part is that she is learning about spring habitats and having fun!
Each page also tells the story with a fact but finishes with a question. This gives the reader time to think more in-depth about what they are seeing. The question is then answered on the back of the page.
Here are of few examples of our favorite pages. First the regular colored page then the secret flashlight reveal.
This fun book inspired us to gear up for garden season and make some ladybug rocks. I’ve always loved ladybug crafts and the stones we found were so similar to a ladybug shape…we couldn’t resist!
Here’s what you’ll need to do to make your own garden ladybugs.
Supplies:
-river rocks, oval shaped
-outdoor paint (from craft store or Walmart)
-paintbrushes, a few sizes
-Mod Podge sealer
Start by painting the entire rock with your desired ladybug color. I used an outdoor paint from Michael’s craft store so that the bugs would hold up in outdoor weather. We let the first coat dry then painted a second.
Once the all-over color is dry, use a small brush to paint a half circle on the smaller end of the rock in black for the ladybug’s head. Next, take the handle tip of an appropriate sized paintbrush, dip in black paint, and dot the ladybug’s back.
Once your bug is completed and dry, use the handle tip of another paint brush to paint two white dots for eyes on each ladybug. After the white paint dries, finish the black center of the eyes with a toothpick dipped in black paint.
If your outdoor paint doesn’t have a built in sealer like ours did, you’ll need to brush a coat of Mod Podge water based sealant over each rock.
Tadah! Your ladybug rocks are ready to move into their new home…your garden! Could these be any cuter?
You can find Secrets Of The Vegetable Garden here. Kane Miller actually has an entire series of these amazing Shine-A-Light books including winter, rainforest, apple tree, hospital, train, plane…the list goes on. Currently, there are 17 different books in the collection.
As always, you can shop all of my favorite books in my bookstore here. If you’re interested in starting your own book business with PaperPie and joining my team click here.
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Happy Spring Readers!
