Audrey Penn has written four books about Chester: The Kissing Hand, A Pocket Full of Kisses, A Kiss Goodbye, and Chester and the Big Bad Bully (which will be released in August, 2008). If you follow this link

http://www.bookexpocast.com/authors-studio/category/childrens you can hear Audrey Penn’s podcast at Book Expo America and learn about the event that inspired her stories about Chester.

If you visit Audrey Penn’s web site at www.audreypenn.com you will find more information about her and her books along with printable activities for many of her books. Audrey Penn’s books are available at The Learning Tree Stores in Stoneham and Danvers.

I have created a printable raccoon pattern for you to use with your students which is available on our web site at www.tltree.com. If you visit my friend Susan DeMuth’s web site at www.shapesetc.com you will find photographs of additional Kissing Hand ideas that I have shared with her.

Here’s an idea for you to try. You will need to purchase one package of Shapes Etc. Heart Computer Paper, Multicultural Computer Paper, or Hands Computer Paper. You will also need one package of Shapes, Etc. large multicultural hand cut-outs and Shapes Etc. Hearts incentive stickers. All of these products are available in our stores. Download and print a number word tile grid from our web site. You may also want to download and print a blank letter tile grid from our web site. Glue one hand cut-out to the middle of each of 11 sheets of computer paper. Attach zero heart stickers to the first hand, one to the next hand, then two...all the way up to ten heart stickers. Cut and glue the corresponding number word under each hand. A child will lay Unifix cubes on each of the heart cutouts (one to one correspondence) as he counts aloud. Then he will use plastic letter tiles to match the letters on the number word tile grid. This gives a child the opportunity to play with print and associate number words with quantity. Or you may want to just use a some of the squares from the blank grid and glue one each under the hand cut-out and have a child place a number tile there to show the quantity of hearts he counted. You could also have a slightly older child place number and letter tiles on each of the work mats.

Creating a Chester Raccoon puppet is another great  idea to be used with the books.  For my regular readers, I have shown this before but it is such a great prop that I am going to repeat it.

Tree trunk

Cut the bottom off of a brown lunch bag. Crumble up rest of bag to give it tree trunk texture and then open it up again. Use side of an unwrapped crayon to rub crayon marks onto the bag. Fold about half of the bag inside of itself. You should now have a tube like shape.

Raccoon

Hold a 9" x 12" paper the wide way. Fold it in half the wide way. Round off the upper 2 corners. Punch holes about every inch or so through both thicknesses on all but the entire bottom edge of the paper. Use yarn to lace the papers together.

Cut out head, tail and 2 pieces of mask patterns. Trace onto gray construction paper. Glue head to top of mitt, mask to face, and tail to side of mitt. Place raccoon inside of tree trunk. Attach back of raccoon to the tree trunk. Leave the front unattached so that tree trunk remains rounded. Place hand inside of raccoon and use as a puppet.

Have a great school year. Carol