We have been reading through the Ordinary People Change the World Series, and I loved that Lucille Ball is included. I grew up watching the I Love Lucy Show, and loved introducing it to my boys. It truly is timeless. They laugh out loud through every episode.
I Am Lucille Ball is written by Brad Meltzer and illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos. Lucille Ball always loved to laugh. When she was a kid, some people thought it wasn’t proper for a girl to be funny. But Lucy was a born comedian, and she always did what came naturally. From the first time she stood on stage, she knew she wanted to be a performer for the rest of her life-and she never gave up on her dream. Because she could use humor to solve any problem, Lucy grew up to be one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
This book is full of fun facts about Lucille Ball. It shows that she was born to entertain and highlights different parts of her life. From being a young girl getting into trouble in school, up through the I Love Lucy Show, she love making people laugh.
Activities we did
My boys loved episode “I Love Lucy” Job Switching episode. Since we couldn’t go work in a chocolate factory, we decided to make a little chocolate play dough instead. They were making candies, cookies, and all sorts of things. They were even pretending they were working on a line. They gave themselves x amount of time to get so many candies made.
How we made our chocolate play dough
We always make our own play dough. The boys sometimes (always) forget to put it up and obviously it dries out. For us, it’s just cheaper to make our own and reuse the old containers to store it in. Plus, the boys love to help. This one is very similar to our regular play dough recipe, except you add cocoa.
Ingredient list:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 Tablespoons cream of tartar
2 cups water
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
First, take all the ingredients and put them into a sauce pan over low heat.
Then you stir….and stir….and stir….and continue to remind yourself that you can’t eat it even though it smells delicious!
Eventually it starts to thicken and resembles dough. 
When this happens, remove it from the heat and let it cool. Once it cools, the fun can begin!
**Please remember to keep this away from animals. Not only does it have cocoa in it (an smells like food), but a lot of salt. Our little furry family members don’t understand that we don’t eat play dough.**
The other episode they chose to do an activity on was “Lucy Does a TV Commercial”. They had a blast making pretend commercials in their “TV”. We just up-cycled a box we had lying around, slapped on a little paint and it was good to go!
We hope you enjoy our month-long highlights for Ordinary People Change The World. Be sure to check out our review and mini unit on Abraham Lincoln and enter the giveaway to WIN this amazing set of books!!
