picture book — New Blog — Books By the Bus

4th of July is almost here and what better way to celebrate than with a Patriotic picture book & craft! The girls had so much fun doing this super simple and fun craft from Crafty Morning! Once complete we snuggled up for a reading session while our masterpieces dried and although there are tons of fun books you could pair with this craft but we opted for Americanly!

What You Need for Your Patriotic Craft

red & blue paint
7 flexible plastic straws
2 paper plates
1 piece of white paper
tape

Since my littles are still pretty little I went ahead and made the firework straw stamps for them and then had them help pour the paint & prep the rest of the space. For the firecracker stamps, take your 7 straws and stretch them out as far as they go and gather them in your hand. Wrap a piece of tape around the bottom and then another right under the top. While dry branch out the tips of the straws to create the firework effect.

I had one plate for blue paint and the other for red. I went ahead and let the girls stamp in whichever color they preferred onto their white sheet of paper. If the paint doesn’t catch completely have your children press the straws individually against the paper. Repeat with the opposite color as much or little as your child would like!

Once the girls were done we laid their work to dry, read our accompanying book, and took a nap (since you know, we had plenty of time since our stuff had to dry ;) )

Patriotic Picture Book

Americanly is such a fantastic book written by Lynn Parrish Sutton and illustrated by Melanie Hope Greenberg. The title originally released in 2016 in conjunction with the National Park Service’s 100th birthday and through its rhythmic verse showcases landmarks and monuments across the United States.

Each line of the story begins “I love you…” and is followed by adverbs and descriptions of locations across America. We’ve absolutely loved this title as we’ve recently moved from Washington to Oklahoma as a military family. Our girls were curious as to where we were each time we stopped to rest and could often reference the map in the back of this title to see how far our adventure took us each day. The book is sturdy, has round corners, and is such a delight to read!

As with many of the Usborne Books & More titles, there is an enormous amount of resources available for teachers and parents to accompany the book. Interviews with both the author and illustrator, a glossary to define each landmark mentioned as well as coloring pages and a word search for young readers to dive into after the story is over!

Americanly is a must have for any family looking to explore the wonders of the United States from the adventure of the road or comfort of their home.

This post includes affiliated links see disclosure policy here for more info!