10
Dec
Flashlight Review + Activity
Ahh… Lizi Boyd. You’re a wordless picture book illustrating wizard. You’ve done it again.
I fell hard for Lizi Boyd’s Inside Outside, and the love affair continues with her latest, Flashlight. A child spends an evening exploring the yard shining a flashlight and revealing surprises the nighttime darkness hides. In the same style as Inside Outside, little peek-a-book cutouts are sprinkled throughout the pages. Hello whimsey!
Back in August when I received this book, I immediately took it to the library to share with the kids for Spontaneous Storytime. Lately, I’ve been creating little extension activities for books I’ve been reading for Spontaneous Storytime and Flashlight presented the perfect opportunity do so. I found images of the animals depicted in the book, printed them out, and pasted them around the storytime room. I also made a tibetan flag using colored copy paper and yarn.
For Spontaneous Storytime throughout that week, small groups of 1-5 children were each given a flashlight, and we read Flashlight in the dim room with the flashlights. They loved shining their flashlights on the book so I could “read”. I explained that this was a book that didn’t have words which means we get to make up the story as we go. The storytimers loved this idea. Some contributed to the story and some took a listening role. After reading, we went on a flashlight hunt where we were sitting to see what animals we might find with our flashlights just like the child in the story.
If you have kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews this is also a fun activity to do on a rainy or snowy day inside. You don’t even have to print out animals! What can you spy in the dark? How does it look different with a flashlight? Or if it’s a nice day, explore the outdoors with a flashlight… What can you see? How does it look different than day time? What animals do you see? Flashlight is a wonderful way to spark investigation and imagination!
More flahslight activities for kids:
3 creative flashlight activities via My Kids Adventures
These flashlight games for kids via Kids Activity Blog
More storytime ideas:
Night and Day Storytime via Storytime Kate
Flashlights in Story Time via Seattle Science Story Times
Shadow Storytime via So Tomorrow
Glow in the Dark Storytime via NYPL
Nocturnal Animals via Fun with Friends at Storytime
Source of book reviewed: The fabulous folks at Chronicle Books.
