August/September Activity

Story Stretchers

For those of us who care for children, books are a big part of our day right? Story time is generally something we look forward to because it gives us a chance to connect with the kids, all at the same time and all sitting down (a rare occurrence in child care!) Books can also be a useful guide in planning daily activities.

Take, for example, the book “No David” by David Shannon. This is the story about a little boy named David and his Mom who always says “No”. At each turn of the page, the reader will see a new illustration of David doing stuff that all kids do (splashing in the bathtub, climbing on a chair, playing with his food) but the message remains the same - No David! There are many opportunities for learning in this book. The trick is to find out what the children are interested in doing or knowing. Some simple and easy things you can do are to: add adult sized pots and pans, pirate hats, and super hero costumes to your dramatic play materials, make homemade musical instruments and have discussions about rules for safety. You could also make this simple nutrition game. We copied the page of the book that shows David with a lot of food in his mouth. The caption underneath reads, “That’s enough David.” We pasted this page onto a lid of a large box. We cut a hole into the box over David’s mouth. In the box, we placed pretend food. This game can be played two ways. Preschoolers enjoy putting their hand into the box and trying to guess what food they have “taken” from David’s mouth.

Developmentally: Younger children may be afraid to put their hand into the box, but might be willing to feed the food to David. Older kids can more than likely identify the food they are holding by touch. They would enjoy describing what they are holding to others and letting others guess what the food is.

Another classic story is “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. This book tells the story of a caterpillar that eats and eats and eats because he is so hungry. Some of the concepts this book addresses are: life cycles, the days of the week, foods, and insects. Try these simple activities: you could make butterflies using pipe cleaners and pages that have been torn from a magazine, practice the days of the week, talk about food likes and dislikes or make butterfly wings with toilet paper rolls and strips of tissue paper. Cut the toilet paper roll lengthwise and glue several strips of tissue (one end only so that the other end hangs down) Children wear these on their wrists like bracelets.

Or, try making a puppet to use when you are reading the story. You’ll need a large piece of thin cardboard, some construction paper or tissue paper and a dryer hose. Use the tissue paper and cardboard to make the caterpillar’s face. Cut an “X” into the face where the caterpillar’s mouth would be. The “X” should be large enough for a small hand to fit in to. Attach the dryer hose to the back of the caterpillar’s face, directly behind the mouth. Use this puppet with the children to demonstrate how the caterpillar eats and grows. Place your hand inside the dryer hose. Allow the children to feed the caterpillar with pretend foods from your dramatic play area. The idea is that the children can see the caterpillar grow as he gets fed.

Developmentally: remember, the key to planning activities is to make them hands-on and fun for the children. Brush painting a ditto of a caterpillar or a butterfly is not “hands-on”. Is painting important? Of course. Painting helps children practice hand-eye coordination, small motor skills and color recognition. But if your goal is (for example) to help children recognize the difference between a caterpillar and a butterfly – painting a ditto is not the most effective way to do it.

The third book I’d like to profile is “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” by Laura Numeroff. This book is wonderful for reinforcing problem solving skills to children because the events in the book follow a natural sequence. For example…the first sentence of the story is “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass a milk. Here a couple of ideas you can use with this story. Try adding baking items like measuring cups and spoons, big bowls and cookie sheets to your dramatic play area. You could also plan on making cookies with the kids one afternoon. Stretch this further by doing a survey of the classroom. Title it “My Favorite Cookie” and figure out how many kids like chocolate chip cookies versus peanut butter or oatmeal. This activity, especially, is a great way to include math in the classroom.

Developmentally: Have you ever heard of the phrase, “My educated guess is…”? Guessing is something that we do all the time. Guessing helps us make decisions about our day. We base our guess using the information we have available at the time. For example, we make an educated guess on what to wear every day based on what the weather report says and what the weather looks like outside our window. We may also take in other factors like what the weather was like the day before or what month it is. Children don’t have our experience or the ability we have to make educated guesses. This is a skill that they need to be taught. The more they understand that information they are receiving, the better they will be able to make "educated guesses."

The long-term benefit to teaching young children to make educated guesses really pays off once children enter school. Learning to read, answering word problems, and participating in science experiments are some of the areas that require children to be competent at making educated guesses.

All of these books (plus many others) are available for check-out in the CCCC Lending Library.

Thank you to Lisa Albert from the EPTSS Division for this month's activity!

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