The Cat and The Rat and The Hat by Em Lynas and Matt Hunt and published by Nosy Crow is a fun, brightly coloured rhyming book which contains a lot of repetitive words. It is fun to read and look at and is a very good book for children who are learning to read. The book also includes a free read aloud for the book. You just have to scan the code and then the story is read to you through your smart phone. I tried it out and both me and my son enjoyed it. I think I enjoyed it more as he likes books to be read to him multiple times one after the other so it gave me a bit of a reading break. It tells you when to turn the page with a noise and my son thought this was brilliant although he does sometimes now ask me to make a noise when I finish reading a page so he knows when to turn to the next page. It's fun coming up with different noises of when to turn the page.
Activities
Dressing up with hats
Learn how to wear a cravat
Who wears what hat discussion
Make a rat
Paper plate cat
Rhyming words on a mat
Make a colourful bat
Cat spot walk
Paint a stone rat
Maze for wind up rat (or stone rat)
Bat walk
Guided bat walk
Strawberry rats
Oreo bat cupcakes
Cat paw print cupcakes
Indoor
As the book is set indoors I have decided to start with the indoor activities first. The book includes a hat so if you could get hold of lots of different hats then you could make a hat box up for your child/children and they can play dress up. You could also add some cravats and teach your child/children how to wear it properly but don't leave them unattended with cravats as they could hurt themselves. While your child/children are playing with the different hats you could talk about what sort of people wear them and why some of them are important. My son loves wearing hats and although he has a few to choose from his favourite is a chicken bucket (if you follow me on Twitter you might see him wearing it in a photo). For a more creative activity you could make a rat. Bend some brown card into a cone shape (I chose brown because the rat in the story is brown but you could use another colour), add a pompom on the pointy end for the nose and then use string for the whiskers and tail. You could paint or colour eyes on or you could add googly eyes. Cut a small circle of pink card in two and then add these as ears. You can easily make a cat using a paper plate, some card, pens and string. If you wanted to make the activity last a bit longer then you could sponge paint the plate to give the cat a textured head and then add some cat features on and use the string for whiskers. You could also turn this into a mask by cutting the eyes out and attaching string so your child can wear it. The story includes a mat and there are lots of rhyming words so you could do a word sort. If you have a mat then brilliant but if not you can sit on a blanket or quilt cover and pretend that this is a mat. Write some of the words out on card, some that rhyme and some that don't and then sort them into a rhyming and non-rhyming pile with your child/children. You could see what extra words you can think of or when your child has got the hang of rhyming they can choose a random word and then think of words that rhyme with the chosen word. For the bat you could cut a bat shape out of some black paper and then your child can use chalks or brightly coloured pencils to decorate their bat. If you want something a bit messier they could always splatter paint their bat with brightly coloured paint.
Outdoor
The book is set indoors but there are some fun outdoor activities that could go along with this book. You could take your child/children for a cat spot walk. They could always take a pen and some paper with them and then see how many cats you can spot while you are out and about. You could do this with rats where you live but I think cat spotting is a better idea. While you are out and about if you collect some large stones or small rocks then you could paint these when you get home to look like rats. If you could get hold of a wind up rat then you could get your child/children to create a maze for the rat. They could use anything that they can find in the garden to make the maze like twigs, stones etc. If you can't get hold of a wind up one they might be happy just playing with the stone rats that they have painted. For a bat related activity you could look up where there are bats likely to be seen and then you could go on a bat walk and see if you can spot any. If you have the money then you could go on a guided tour and then your child/children can learn some facts from an expert. This could be really good fun and something that they can tell their friends about.
Cooking/Food
For a rat inspired dish you could turn some strawberries into rats. Push two chocolate buttons into the top on either side to make them look like ears and then use some writing icing for the eyes and put a blob on the end of the strawberry for a nose. You could put a blueberry on as a nose if you wanted. For a bat inspired dish you could make (or buy) some cupcakes and then break an Oreo in half and put it on the top of the cake like bat wings. You could do something similar for a cat inspired dish but instead of breaking the Oreo leave it whole, put it on the top of the cake and then add some chocolate buttons around the top to make it look like a paw print on the top of the cake.
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