Not Enough Beds! by Lisa Bullard. The very title of this book brings to mind pieces of the Christmas story, and famous lines like “no room in the inn.” However, this is a whole different take on not enough room. It is a delightful story that is illustrated in a fun, engaging way that grabs the attention and the imagination as more and more people come for Christmas. We read the books many times, chatted out the illustrations, remembered what it’s like at Grandma’s house when we all show up and laughed about where we’ll all sleep this year at my aunt’s house. Then, my very creative girls decided to make up some games to go with the book. I love this! Any time kids are making connections between a book and their real life, good things are happening. They are learning to see reading as fun and useful, they are learning to see reading as a catalyst for imagination and play and they are learning that reading has all kinds of valued and purpose in their life. Here is how we enjoyed the book. We hope you love it too.
Musical Pillows:
This game is a lot like musical chairs. You lay pillows in a circle, one less pillow than people playing. Then you turn on a Christmas CD and walk in a circle around the pillows until the music stops. When it stops, you rush to lay on a pillow. The person with no pillow is out. Keep playing until you have a winner. Don’t be surprised when the kids want to invite friends and family to play too as this really is a “the more the merrier kind of game!”
I’ll sleep in the….:
This game is pure silliness. The girls decided it would be fun to try sleeping in funny places. We put our alphabet flashcards in a fun Christmas bag and took turns drawing out a letter. Once you draw the letter, you find a place in the house that starts with that letter and try sleeping there “b, bathtub” “l, laundry” “u, under the chair”! (They ended up putting their stuffed animals in lots of the places and then having daddy draw a card and guess the sleeping spot, if he found all the animals he got ice cream!)
An Extension: We did enjoy this book many times over. Then we talked about while it is fun, it would not be fun to have no where to go for Christmas. If there really weren’t enough beds, it wouldn’t be quite so fun any more. From there we did read the actual Christmas story and talked about ways we could share the love of Christmas in our community. We kept with the theme of enough beds and decided to help out the People’s City Mission. They have some great things going on for Christmas, check out the Starry Nights Gala coming us this weekend, as well as year long opportunities to get involved. We hope you’ll check them out too!
Have a great week and a great beginning to the Christmas season in this town.
