Welcome to the Picnic Parade! It’s that time of year again, when everyone is either out of school and trying to keep kids reading, or they are trying to make the end of school fun. Enter the Picnic Parade! We are here to help you have fun and engage with some great literature. Over the next two weeks, you will be taken on a tour of great books and activities that your whole family will love. Be sure to check out last year’s Picnic Parade for even more great ideas.
Everyone is trying to keep kids reading this summer. Enter the Picnic Parade! Click To TweetAt this year’s Picnic Parade, you will discover:
Imagination Station 19: Light in the Lion’s Den , Dinosuars, and Who Was Mother Theresa from right here at Minivan Ministries
The Trellis & the Seed from Yvie at Gypsie Road School
The Sign Painter’s Dream from Joan of Kid Frugal
Ladybug Girl at the Beach from Tori of Mess to Blessed
Now on with our picnic!
The Location
What better place to have a lion picnic than the zoo? We headed to our local zoo and discovered that they do not have lions! That didn’t stop us, however. We still had fun strolling around and getting into that wild animal spirit.

The Book
Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.” Daniel 10:12 ESV
Imagination Station is a great series of Christian themed books that also teach history. Light in the Lions’ Den (AIO Imagination Station Books) takes us into the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den straight from the book of Daniel. This has always been one of my kids’ favorite bible stories. I love taking an old story and putting a new twist on it. Not only that, but we also got to to talk about King Nebuchadnezzar’s statue and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when the book referred to them.
Lion Food
In honor of our book, we chose to have a lion themed picnic. We made lion tortillas with cheesey manes. The eyes were boiled eggs. Cheese and pepperoni made the mouths. There were also pretzel whiskers. Each child made their own with just a little instruction.
We ate our lion tortillas with lion humus and pita chips. (I totally forgot to get out the carrots. Oops. So much for vegetables!)
Add in a Little Math
Animal crackers rounded out the picnic. Before we ate them, we took the opportunity to do a little graphing. We used this Grab and Graph Math Centre. My 6 year old loves graphing, so she thought this was a fun picnic idea.
Lion Art
We rounded out the Day with lion art. We used very simple shapes and lions to create lion faces. Each one looked quite different. My 3 year old did all her own artwork using a step by step tutorial. I may be biased, but I think it’s amazing!
Enjoy!
I highly encourage you to check out the Imagination Station books. Although Imagination Station’s Light in the Lion’s Den was Book 19 in the series, you can figure out what the general idea of the series is by reading the prologue. If you like this book, you will probably enjoy the whole series and other Adventures in Odyssey books. Not only that, but Adventures in Odyssey also has audio books.
See you at the next picnic!
What is your favorite children’s book? Do you have any special activities that coordinate with it?
Check out these inspiring Picnic Parade ideas:
A Nighttime Picnic with Night Animals
Picnic at the Oklahoma Land Run
Burgess Bird Book–Welcome Spring!
Imagination Station’s “Light in the Lion’s Den”
Picnic with a Purpose: Who Was Mother Teresa?
Related Products
We have some of the first books in the series and my boys LOVE it. I’ve somehow missed getting the newer ones into the house. I’m sure my 7 year old would be happy if I do.
LauraOinAK recently posted…Healthy Living Link Party #112
It looks like the kids had a great time. I especially loved the lion tortillas with cheesey manes!
Susan Evans recently posted…Make Your Own State Tourism Brochures
So cute. I can’t wait to take my grandson to the zoo.
Alice Mills recently posted…How To Get Out Of Your Own Way
Any time that there’s food at a picnic….always a hit with kids! 🙂
How fun! We love Adventures in Odyssey! Looks like y’all had a blast.
Heather recently posted…Let’s Be Real (we all struggle with something)
What fun! Makes me wish I still had little ones to home school. Thanks for sharing. – Amy
http://stylingrannymama.com/
Haha I love this! Kids are so much fun and really help keep the child inside of us alive. What a wonderful idea to theme it all around the book! My kids would love this, I may try this themed book picnic idea during our Summer adventures!
I would love to hear how it goes!
This sounds like a lot of fun! My kids love all things animal and naturey!
How fun!! Love these activities that you did with this book. So fun. We have purchased a few of these titles and I was looking forward to reading them.
I love how you made the food for the picnic fit your theme – So much fun!
Marissa recently posted…Encouraging Hearts & Home 5/18
It is an understatement to say the kids had a swell of a time. Clearly, shows on their faces….God bless them.
This looks so awesome. My oldest boy is a lover of all things lion so I can see this being a huge success with him. Thanks for the inspiring ideas. I’m going to try make some lion food and do a lion themed picnic type day for him soon 🙂
Ailie Baumann recently posted…Jochebed’s Story of Trust, Courage, and Faith