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Book Extension ActivitiesAgenda to Post

▹ Welcome and Agenda Review (5) ▹ Small Groups – Planning for Family Activities (35) ▹ Music, Finger-Plays, and Early Literacy (15, see webpage below)

▹ Read Aloud – Traditional Folk Tales (25) ▹ BREAK – (10) ▹ Acting Out Stories (20) ▹ Making Our Own Books – Hands-On Activity (30) ▹ Mini-Lecture – Story Telling (20) ▹ Small Group – Book Extension Activities Worksheet (15)

▹ Homework and Closing – (5)

Audio Visual ▹ http://www.rif.org/kids/leadingtoreading/en/ babies-toddlers/finger-plays.htm

▹ htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= GJvlUT_daQA

Handouts5.1 Music and Finger-Plays5.2 Puppets, Flannel Boards, Making Books 5.3 Book Extension Activities Worksheet

Children’s Books ▹ The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Paul Galdone ▹ Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott ▹ Suki’s Kimono by Chieri Uegaki and Stéphane Jorisch

▹ One other book of your choice appropriate for the ages and languages of children enrolled in each home

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Class 5 – Book Extension Activities

Small Groups – Planning for Family Activities (35 minutes)

Music, Finger-Plays, and Early Literacy (15 minutes)

Over the last 4 classes, we have talked about how it is very important that you:

▹ talk to and interact LOTS with babies and toddlers ▹ read with children every day, using books as springboards for conversation ▹ discuss and build vocabulary ▹ play with the sounds of words through rhyming, alliteration, and patterns of speech

All of these activities help to lay the developmental foundation for children’s future success in school and in life.

This class focuses on ways that books can be used as springboards to inspire many related activities in your curriculum: music, songs, and finger-plays; acting out stories together or with puppets or felt boards; making books; and story telling. But first we’ll discuss your homework worksheets on planning for your book lending library and family event.

Share ideas from your Homework Worksheets (Handout 4.4)

Form groups of 4 with people who don’t usually sit together. You might convene groups based on special needs of individuals, such as those whose children are bussed to your programs or those whose children are in a particular age group.

Discuss in your small groups: (Ask someone to record ideas, concerns, and questions for the whole group)

▹ How will you introduce the Lending Library / Book Bag activity and engage families? (10 minutes) ▹ What are you thinking about for your family literacy event? What materials might you use? (10 minutes)

Report back strategies and materials to the whole group. Discuss and problem-solve any concerns.

Pass out and review Handout 5.1. Take turns reading the introduction and bulleted list. Ask volunteers to describe the singing that happens in their homes.

Show the website http://www.rif.org/kids/leadingtoreading/en/babies-toddlers/finger-plays.htm and explore the finger-play page). Ask participants to choose two finger-plays that they want to watch and practice them all together.

Point out that the hand motions for Itsy Bitsy Spider are impossible for younger children and brainstorm simpler, spidery hand motions that toddlers can accomplish (for example, put your hands flat together, then bring your fingertips together. Repeat this in-and-out motion in time to the beat.

Discussion

Welcome and Agenda Review (5 minutes)

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Class 5 – Book Extension Activities

Acting Out Stories (20 minutes)

Read Aloud – Traditional Folk Tales (25 minutes)

Break (10 minutes)

Most cultures have traditional folk tales that get passed on through the generations. Because these have been honed over the decades and often centuries, they hold a fascination for young children today. Examples of mainstream English folk tales that are popular with the youngest children include The Three Little Pigs,

The Three Bears, Goldilocks, and The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Pass out the book The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Read it aloud, taking turns as you like. Read with animated expression, demonstrating how you might do the voices of each of the billy goats and the troll. If you were reading this story to your group, what would you talk about with them along the way?

As preschoolers are beginning to sort through and understand their real-life fears, they may know someone who is angry and scares them. This folk tale is especially popular with children who have one or more bullies in their lives. They identify with the big billy goat and take great pleasure in his triumph when he butts the troll into the river.

Pass out Anansi the Spider and Suki’s Kimono. Both of these books also lend themselves to preschoolers acting out the stories and working through emotional issues. The Anansi books are classic folk tales from the Ashanti people of present day Ghana.

Discuss

Favorite Books. Encourage children to act out favorite stories. For example, to dramatize The Three Billy Goats Gruff, you simply need to figure out some way of making a “bridge” that children can walk on. Facilitate children taking turns acting out the roles of the goats and the troll. They will love chanting “Well then, be off with you!” and butting the troll into the river, waving “Bye bye!”

Other classic English folk tales, beloved by children and lending themselves to creative dramatics, include The Three

Little Pigs, Jack (or Jill) and the Bean Stock, and Goldilocks and the

Three Bears. (You might want to avoid or edit some traditional tales because they are too frightening or sexist.) After children are familiar with these stories they will have fun figuring out how to act them out them.

Turn to the person next to you and tell about the kinds of stories that were popular in your childhood cultures. What

Class 5 – Book Extension Activities

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are the basic storylines and how might you help the children act them out? What are the basic themes and messages of these stories? Report some to the group.

What are favorite books in your program that children might act out? For example, how might you do Brown

Bear Brown Bear? The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

Puppets. Another way to act out stories from books is through puppets. Pass out handout 5.2 and review various ways of making puppets. With preschool children you might want to make a puppet theater by cutting a window in a big box and decorating the sides with tempera paint.

Flannel or Felt Boards. A third way to act out stories is through flannel or felt boards. Handout 5.2 describes some ways to make your own flannel boards and the pieces to use with them.

Stories from Your Experiences. Finally you can act out stories from your own lives. You might set up a zoo with stuffed animals and then role-play a visit to them. Or you might act out an experience that you all had this morning at the playground. For example, if children have an ongoing conflict, you could use puppets or persona dolls (Google this wonderful strategy and make your own persona dolls) to play out a typical scene and then ask children to suggest what the characters might do or say in the situation. Then you might introduce problem-solving strategies to explore ways that children could stand up to the bully or and stand up for another child who is being bullied.

Class 5 – Book Extension Activities

Children love books that tell stories that are important to them. Handout 5.2 gives several ways that you can make your own books with children.

Ellen made a 3-ring binder book, I was so Mad, shown in the photo on this page. Kathy bound photos and text at an office supply store to make Hoppy, the Biting Rabbit, expressing the children’s disappointment as they pulled the rabbit (which had bitten 2 children) back to the pet store in a red wagon. Roxy’s class made a Friendship Book showing photos of all the children.

Watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJvlUT_daQA (This is the second bullet on Handout 5.2 under making books).

Pass out Handout 5.2 which includes how to make a slot-and-tab book. Pass out 8 pages of copy pages per person plus markers and scissors for each table. Make a simple book following the directions. Talk about how you might use this creation to make a book with your children, given their ages and interests.

Making Our Own Books – Hands-On Activity (30 minutes)

Acting Out Stories (continued) (20 minutes)

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Class 5 – Book Extension Activities Class 5 – Book Extension Activities

Before there was printed text, there was story telling, and it remains a vivid part of cultural life around the world today. Stories have helped people to preserve and pass knowledge across generations and build a spirit of identity within the whole community. They teach children about the expectations of their culture.

But the content and style of stories vary greatly from one group to another. For example, Shirley Brice Heath, in her fascinating book Ways with Words (to which our title pays homage), described distinctly different styles of story telling in two poor and working class communities located only a few miles apart in the Piedmont Mountains of Carolina. Here are some of the differences she observed between the white Appalachian and the African American towns:

“ One community allows only stories which are factual and have little exaggeration. Stories must be invited or announced by someone other than the story-teller. Only certain community members are designated good story-tellers.… They reaffirm their commitment to community and church values by giving factual accounts of their own weaknesses and the lessons learned in overcoming those.”The other community “uses reality only as the germ of a highly creative fictionalized account…. The story-tellers, from a young age, must be aggressive in inserting their stories into an on-going stream of discourse…. Everyone in a conversation may want to tell a story, so only the most aggressive wins out…. [Story-tellers proclaim] boldly their individual strength in having been creative, persistent, and undaunted in the face of conflict…. Playsongs, ritual insults, cheers, and stories are assertions of the strong over the weak, of the power of the person featured in the story.”

from Shirley Bryce Heath, Ways with Words, 1983, pp. 184-185

Think about the kinds of oral stories that were valued in your childhood. Was fantasy encouraged or did stories tend to recall actual events? Did people appreciate exaggeration and embellishment or insist on “sticking to the facts?” [Ask for a few volunteers to give brief examples.]

Young children are natural-born storytellers and we can encourage them to develop this important and gratifying skill. They like to recall experiences, especially if they were exciting or upsetting. “BIG DOG!” says a toddler at lunch time. You expand the story: “Yes, we saw a BIG dog on our walk, and you were scared! We walked fast to get away from him.” “I scared.” confirms the child. You might prompt a second retelling to the parent at pick-up time. Another child might act out the fear in dramatic play.

Gradually children become able to participate more, so that you can construct the story together, taking turns as you do in reciprocal conversations. You elaborate on what they say then pause for them to fill in the next part. When adults have supported this kind of story telling, many 3-year-olds are able to tell a whole story that is a few sentences long. They may recall events, make up fanciful tales, or both, depending on the individual child and the kinds of stories they have heard from people or books.

Preschoolers can tell elaborated stories from their lives. And they can make up fantasy stories, especially if you and/or their families promote the use of imagination. With encouragement they can learn to tell about

Mini-Lecture – Story Telling (20 minutes)

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the past and the future – expanding their worlds and practicing the decontextualized conversation that they will need to succeed in school.

Some children tell stories out loud during their dramatic play and indeed dramatic play can be considered the acting out of internal stories. “Here you go, baby, here’s your bottle. Don’t cry baby.”

You can promote the development of story telling and make your days more interesting, as children – and you - reveal your inner thoughts and creativity. (There is some evidence that the ability to tell stories prepares children to learn to read and write.)

▹ Use story starters at the snack or lunch table or while you have to wait for something: You might say “Once upon a time… or “This morning at the farmers’ market, we saw….”, then pause for their contribution. Pick it up again as needed to move along.

▹ Another strategy is to mount photos (of animals or objects for example) on index cards and ask children to pick a card and tell a story about it. As you listen attentively to their conversation, you can facilitate their spontaneous story telling.

▹ When they draw or paint a picture, ask if they want you to write something about their work. Write in small print on the page – or some educators suggest that you write on the back or on a separate piece of so that you do not interfere with their creation.

▹ Make books together, writing down their words and perhaps adding photos. ▹ For a family event, help the children plan a story that they will act out together.

Mini-Lecture – Story Telling (continued) (20 minutes)

Small Group – Book Extension Activities Worksheet (15 minutes)

Homework and Closing (5 minutes)

Pass out and look over Handout 5.3 with suggestions for how you might build on the content of books to enrich your curriculum.

In your small groups, begin by talking about the book The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Go down the list of possible activities and talk about whether this book could be a stepping stone to each related activities. When you come to “Vocabulary,” list 3 or 4 words that might be new to the children and talk about how you could tell and show what those words mean.

Take a quick show of hands to see which groups thought that this book would be useful to promote each related activity. Ask which vocabulary words were identified.

Read Talk to Me, Baby! pages 169-215. Note comments or discussion for the next class.

Using Handout 5.3, choose two more of your books to analyze for extension activities. Bring this worksheet to the next class.

Class 5 – Book Extension Activities

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Handout 5.1Adapted from Gibson, R. & Griffin, T. (2013). Music for Language and Literacy.

Preschool Enrichment Team, Springfield, MA March, 2013. The effects of music on the emotions are commonly known. Now the influence of music on the brain and thinking have also been demonstrated. Research has shown that during an electroencephalogram (EEG), music can change brain waves and make the brain more receptive to learning. Music connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain so that they work together and make learning quicker and easier. Studies have shown that music promotes more complex thinking. It can make connections between emotions, thinking, and learning (Davies, 2000).

▹ Music offers a powerful representation of language that is very engaging for babies, toddlers, and all children.

▹ Beyond developing phonological awareness (rhyming, rhythm, repetition, alliteration), finger-plays and songs enhance the development of listening skills, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar and syntax, and sequencing abilities.

▹ Learning songs in another language is an effective way to learn that language and its cultural traditions. ▹ Music offers young children an engaging way to express themselves. ▹ Songs and finger-plays teach and reinforce action words like, marching, scurrying, slinking, tip-toeing, sauntering and lumbering and demonstrate the meaning of new vocabulary in a fun and engaging way.

▹ Many folk songs and fingerplays have been turned into books. When a young child sings the familiar song while looking at book, she begins to match a sung word with a written word and gains a sense of reading!

Music, Finger-plays, and Early Literacy

Singing and Fingerplays are great ways to promote early literacy. Do you know that:

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▹ Young children’s natural singing range is higher than that of adults. Try starting songs on a note that seems a little high, so children can match your pitch. ▹ Discussing the “drama” in a fingerplay or song before, during, or after singing will support children’s

comprehension. For example, “Why does the mouse need to run away?” ▹ Music offers guidance for positive behaviors. Educators can sing songs to support the learning of

routines, smooth transitions, and building self-regulation skills. ▹ Children can “invent” their own songs and verses using a common melody such as “Twinkle, Twinkle,

Little Star.” Write down the child’s new words on chart paper, then all sing together. ▹ With preschoolers, post the words to songs on large chart paper and point to the words while you

sing. This is another way to teach the spoken word to written word connection. If children are ready, ask children to point to the words as they are sung. Cover a word and ask them to complete the line. ▹ With preschoolers, display and use Songs and Fingerplays Cards so children can choose music for the

day, providing opportunities for print awareness, initial sound identification, sound to print connection, and alphabet knowledge. ▹ Children can tell “song stories” using instruments for varied “characters” within the story.

See http://www.rif.org/kids/leadingtoreading/en/babies-toddlers/finger-plays.htm for animated versions of 17 favorite finger-plays including Pat-a-Cake, The Itsy, Bitsy Spider, Five Little Monkeys, Open Shut Them, Hokey Pokey, Wheels on the Bus, Head and Shoulders, and Where is Thumbkin. The second “page” of this screen shows Spanish finger-plays.

This site also features high-quality animated stories, nursery rhymes, lullabies (in 4 languages), and games for babies and toddlers and similar examples for preschoolers.

Handout 5.1 – Music, Finger-plays, and Early Literacy

Activity Suggestions

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Puppets. Another way to act out stories from books is through puppets. You can:

▹ Buy hand puppets or make them. ▹ Cut out photo-copied characters from a favorite book and mount them on popsickle sticks.

▹ Wrap toilet paper rolls with paper, tucking in the edges, and then draw on them or glueing on felt and yarn, and maybe little jiggley eyes.

▹ With older children, make a puppet theater by cutting a window in a big box and decorating the sides with paint.

Felt or Flannel Boards. Another way to act out stories is with a felt or flannel board.

▹ To make a board, cut out a heavy piece of cardboard or foam core (20-30“ wide and a little less tall). Or use a larger framed canvas from an art supply store.

▹ Cut a piece of flannel or felt (maybe light blue or beige or black?) a couple inches wider and taller than the board.

▹ Wrap it tightly around the board and tape it onto the back with contact or duct tape – or use spray adhesive or a glue gun. Use a staple gun to attach fabric to the wooden canvas frame.

▹ To make characters and props, you can make your own or photocopy pictures from beloved storybooks, enlarging them as needed. Attach the pieces to dryer sheets or sandpaper with a glue gun or spray adhesive. A Youtube search for flannel board pieces will give you many more ideas.

Making Books. When you and the children have a good story, consider making it into a book.There are several ways to do this (to view, type or paste these website links into your browser):

▹ Buy a 3-ring binder and 3-hole punch pages of construction paper or copy paper. You may want to get clear plastic sheet protectors to make sturdier pages. Or you can simply use 2-3 small round key rings to bind the pages.

▹ Make a 12-page slot-and-tab book made by cutting pages and tucking them in as shown in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJvlUT_daQA. We will do this in class.

▹ Make a bigger, sturdier book by sewing pages together and making a cover as shown in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdTkcDj7PbY

▹ Buy a spiral-bound notebook with blank pages (order online if not available locally) and make a brown paper bag cover following www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu5A6Y9LTAk

Handout 5.2Puppets, Flannel Boards, and Making Books

Children’s books are useful for reading, promoting conversation, building vocabulary, and so much more. They can also lead to related activities, or “extensions” of the book.

Use this worksheet to think about ways that you could build on the content of a book to enrich your curriculum. Starting with The Three Billy Goats Gruff, analyze which of the following activities might grow from that book. Make notes for your future reference.

Then enter two more book titles and analyze activities you might use to extend that book. (We will study print awareness and letter knowledge next time in the last class.)

Title — The Three Billy Goats Gruff __ Dramatic play with props __ Art (painting, drawing, collage, clay/playdough)

__ Acting out the story __ Phonological awareness

__ Using puppets or a felt board __ Print awareness

__ Music and/or creative movement __ Letter knowledge

__ Vocabulary – word _____________________________________________________________________

__ Other related activities _________________________________________________________________

Title __________________________________________________________________

__ Dramatic play with props _________________ __ Art (painting, drawing, collage, clay/playdough)

__ Acting out the story __ Phonological awareness

__ Using puppets or a felt board __ Print awareness

__ Music and/or creative movement __ Letter knowledge

__ Vocabulary – words ____________________________________________________________________

__ Other related activities _________________________________________________________________

Title ____________________________________________________________________ Dramatic play with props __ Art (painting, drawing, collage, clay/playdough)

__ Acting out the story __ Phonological awareness

__ Using puppets or a felt board __ Print awareness

__ Music and/or creative movement __ Letter knowledge

__ Vocabulary – words_____________________________________________________________________

__ Other related activities _________________________________________________________________

Handout 5.3Book Extension Activities Worksheet

Title ______________________________________________________ Dramatic play with props __ Art (painting, drawing, collage, clay/playdough)

__ Acting out the story __ Phonological awareness

__ Using puppets or a felt board __ Print awareness

__ Music and/or creative movement __ Letter knowledge __act out __ puppets | __print awareness

__ Vocabulary - words

__ Other related activities