We have been enjoying alternative fairy tales with Mr Men and Little Miss Story Treasury by Roger Hargreaves to celebrate over 40 years of Mr Men!  Who was the first character to be created in the Mr Men series?  Why was he created?  When was the first Little Misses created? For answers to these questions and links to the whole Mr Men and Little Misses story collection click here or alternatively click on the pictures below:

For each central character of a book there are some simple activities to do with your kids.  Here are some of our favourites:

1:Mr Topsy Turvy: After reading Mr Topsy-Turvy we usually play two-three games:

a-Inside Out and Back to Front:  We turn our clothes inside out or back to front and the we do everything opposite.  So if one of us says forward the others in the game must walk backwards.  If the next person says run fast then the other players need to go slow and so on.

b-Brain stimulation game:  If it is Mr Topsy Turvy time we draw with our other hand and change the hand we usually eat with.

c-Backwards Codes: With older children you can also do the game of talking backwards, which becomes a secret code and creates hours of entertainment.

 

2-Mr Happy:  There are many possibilities with Mr Happy, but here are our two of our favourites: 

a-Why Are We Happy: With Mr Happy we draw out large outlines of Mr Happy and then everyone helps to colour him in.  We then discuss together what has made us happy this week and write, draw or find a picture to stick on our Mr Happy poster and then we put it up on the wall of the living room.

b-Make Someone Happy: Another extension of Mr Happy is thinking about someone who we want to bring some happiness to, and then we draw pictures or bake something and take it to that person.

3-Little Miss Curious:  This one can be the most surprising and adventurous:

a-Ask any Question: As long

as we remain respectful we can ask each other any question we want to.  Sometimes kids ask ‘Why did you do this?’ to each other or us and I believe this gives them empowerment.  Also one of my toddlers asked if he came from an egg and did I have eggs.

b-What is something you would like to know about the world around you? Our current research questions composed by my 3 and a half year old sons were, ‘If the world turns, why don’t I feel it and why don’t I fly off?’ and anything to do with the moon.

For a great idea to explore gravity visit the RedTedArt’s Blog: Kid’s Craft: Make your own Marble Run.  Not only do you get to learn how to make a recycled marble run there are some great resources and links to explaining the science behind rolling marbles.

Read our Moon Fever post for ideas to explore the Moon with toddlers.

4-Mr Bounce

Apart from bouncing fun on the bed, couch etc. Mr Bounce is fun for all kinds of bouncing exploration out of doors.  We collect up all our balls and in the garden see which bounce the highest.  We also see how many bounces we get in one go from one ball.  Our favourites though are the night bouncing soft balls.  We turn off the lights and watch them come alive as they bounce across the living room floor.

 

5-Mr Tickle

No Mr man fest would be complete without Mr Tickle.  In our house we have Mr Tickle time.  This is a free for all Ticklethon where we tickle each other.  We also take it in turns to tickle and time how long we can hold our laughter.

 

 

 

Some general activities:

1-Colouring and decorating: After creating the outlines of various Mr Men and Little Misses, they are great for learning colours and for simple block colouring.  They are also fairly easy to cut around.  This means your toddler can easily colour, cut and decorate the fridge or their bedroom wall with their own characters.

2-Another variation is taking the cut out character ans adding double sided sticky tape.  These can then be stuck on your child’s T-shirt and they can become that character for a while.  This becomes fun home made drama.

3-Guess who I am? Using the books as cards, you can easily show one of the characters in secret to a child.  They then have to act out the character while their friends and other players have to guess which character they are.