Books and Activities for Rainy Spring Days

Spring is right around the corner, and along with the warmer weather and flowers comes spring break! That’s two weeks for us to fill with trips to the park, playing in the yard, splashing in puddles, and riding bikes. But March around here gets pretty wet too, so we also need activities for rainy days. Our friends at Raincoast Books (how appropriate!) sent us samples of some recent novelty books and toys that are right up our alley!

Fairy Tale Play: A Pop-Up Storytelling Book by Julia Spiers

My kids love making up stories. They like writing their own, and they like acting them out, and this pop-up storytelling book is a beautiful way of exercising their creativity. The book includes four pop-up scenes – under the sea, in a forest, at a castle, and inside a cave – along with four double-sided sheets of more than 100 press-out characters, animals, plants, and items that kids can use to create and act out their stories.

And if the kids need a little inspiration, the package also comes with four mini-plays already written and ready for acting out: The Little Mermaid, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves. The paper press-outs and plays come in a black, paper pouch that keeps everything together and safe for the next play session or to take along on your spring break road trip.

Moby-Dick: A Pop-Up Book from the Novel by Herman Melville by Gérard Lo Monaco and Joëlle Jolivet

“Call me Ishmael.”

This unique book pops up just in time for author Herman Melville’s 2ooth birthday! Ten linocut shadowbox-style spreads and select excerpts summarize key moments from his best-known work, Moby-Dick, the classic novel chronicling the last voyage of the whaling ship Pequod and Captain Ahab’s obsessive quest to capture Moby Dick, the white whale who bit off Ahab’s leg on a previous hunt.

The text is playfully laid out in an assortment of typefaces which take a little more effort to read smoothly, but adds an interesting vintage feel. Notes at the bottom of the page set the scene and provide a basic outline of the story. The language and story are likely beyond younger readers, but they’ll appreciate the 3D scenes, and older children might be inspired to read the book (or more likely, an abridged version).

Stamp Bugs by Barbara Dziadosz

Celebrate spring with bumblebees, dragonflies, beetles, ladybugs, and fireflies! This sturdy box contains two stamp pads and twenty-five wood-backed rubber stamps in an assortment of shapes and textures representing insect heads, bodies, legs, wings, and antennae. Mix and match stamps in yellow and/or black to recreate your favourite insects or invent brand new ones!

The kids love any kind of stamps, and these “build your own bug” stamps are a whole lot of fun. Some of the stamps are a bit bigger than the individual stamp pads provided, but the kids quickly learned to move the stamp around to get ink on all of it. We have some other stamp pads lying around that allowed us to add more colours for even more buggy fun.

Spring Break Giveaway

Let’s do a giveaway! The winner can pick any one of the items we reviewed in this post to bring home for some fun this spring. Enter in the giveaway widget below. This giveaway is open to residents of Canada, 18+. All the winner’s entries will be verified.

Click here to check out my other open giveaways and be sure to follow me on Facebook!

Disclosure: I received sample items to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are completely honest and my own, based on my personal experience. Your experience may differ. This post contains affiliate links. This West Coast Mommy is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.