Well it’s Week 4 of the MeMeTales Readathon. Have you been reading along? Mr. A particularly loved the books this week. The theme was Imagination and the three featured books were fantastic. Great reading for his age group. Night Boy, Doors in the Air, and There’s a Dinosaur in the Park were all wonderful stories of a child’s imagination hard at work.
When Mr. A was younger we used to imagine a lot of things. His favorite game was being stuck in the mud. Any patch of carpet would become a mud puddle that we would have to pull him out of. Another favorite was digging for dinosaur bones or treasures in any patch of dirt we could find. I guess that’s why this week’s book There’s a Dinosaur in the Park particularly struck me.
It also reminded me of the gaping hole we currently have in our back yard. Just a couple of weeks ago K & A asked me if they could go dig in the dirt in the back yard. Sure, I told them, as long as they stayed near the wood line where the grass doesn’t grow. Mind you, I’m picturing them sitting in the dirt digging a small hole using small garden shovels or something of the like. Well, they were quiet for quite some time. When I finally got back there so see what they’d been up to I found this…
Turns out they were digging for treasure. But of course! Why else would they be digging lol? They found some small piece of plastic with a hole in it and they were convinced if they kept digging they would find a key or better yet an actual treasure. It’s nice to see that at ages seven and nine their imaginations are alive and well (and can still entertain).
Now I don’t necessarily recommend digging a whole large enough to plant a tree in your back yard as an activity to go along with this book. Perhaps setting up a small (contained) dinosaur dig site using some sand or dirt and various objects buried as dinosaur bones might be more appropriate. But, this story of the hole in my back yard was just begging to be told and it does go to show what a little imagination can do :)
Disclaimer: I am receiving books each week free from MeMeTales. In exchange I will be sharing with you the activities we do as well as ideas related to the theme of the week along with promoting this program. My honest opinion is that it is a WONDERFUL program and we would be participating in this Readathon whether my blog was selected as a partner or not. (although I can also honestly say I’m thrilled that we were!).