Reading

Great Gift Idea….A Story-telling Bag…DIY!

One teaching tool that I love to have within an arm’s reach is my storytelling bag collection.  I hesitated to use the word “collection” but I looked up synonyms and nothing was cooler than that so I guess I have to admit that I collect storytelling bags.  A storytelling bag is basically a themed bag that includes a book, props for that book, and some teaching tips and ideas (mini-lesson plans) that extend the learning opportunities for that theme.  I love to use props to act out a story because drama really brings the characters to life and children are better able to recall the story from memory.

So many skills can be hit on using story telling bags…. check out some of Louisiana’s ELA grade level expectations for “reading literature and informational text” and “speaking and listening” for ideas.

Here is an example of a story-telling bag (also called a literacy bag),

and here is my effort to create the same story-telling bag for a friend who homeschools on her little one’s birthday 🙂

The llama is from Bolivia, in South America…. so glad my impulse buys came in handy 🙂

I also added teaching tips in the bag. You can do the same by typing the name of the book that you are gifting into a google search followed by “lesson plans” or something similar….OR you can come up with your own!  I may be the mommy teacher but I truly believe in saving time, (money), and reserving energy for my kids so do what is best for YOU.  In fact, if you are a garage-saler, be on the look-out for quality books and props that might correspond to the books and you will save money, and time shopping for the next birthday gift!

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Using Words To Describe Directionality

A lot of parents assume their super verbal and proficient little ones have a wider speaking vocabulary than listening vocabulary.  It is not that your little one doesn’t “know” the words they are looking for, but there are certain language concepts that are not yet part of their speaking vocabulary.

For instance, if I asked your little one to look “under” the table to find my pencil, he or she probably wouldn’t hesitate.  Your little one probably knows the word “under” in context enough to search in the direction that I am referring to.  Or, if I am “under” a table and I asked your little one where I was he or she might state, “Under the table” using the position word “under.”  But, in the context that I had a doll “under” something and asked your little one to describe where the doll is in their words.  He/she may or may not use words to describe directionality like (under, next to, through, between, back, on top, over, above, etc.)

So, to work on developing this skill through a natural progression from head knowledge to incorporating these words into their oral voacbulary and using them abstractly, I am going to give you a series of position word activities using pictures of Casey’s little ones because she is such an awesome mommy teacher – check out her kidspiration blog 🙂

1) Playing Copy Cat Games:  Casey loves to play these games with her little “Leyson man.”  This is very similar to “simon says” – ask your little one to copy you as you place your hands “Over” your head, “between” your knees, “beside” your cheeks, etc.

 

Casey's little one, James, hiding under the bed!

2) Hide and Seek: Hide a toy and give directions using position words for your little one to find it, “The block is between the couch pillows.”

3) Act it out with your whole body:  “Can you hide under the bed?  Can you climb on top of the stool?  Can you jump over the pillow?”  This part of the activity helps little ones meet the needs of learning through movement!Casey’s little one, Leyson, practicing position words with his farm animals!

Casey's little one, Leyson, practicing position words with his farm animals!

 4) Act it out with toys:  “Can your cow jump over the farmhouse? Can your pig squeeze through the doorway?”  This helps the little ones needs to learn in a hands-on way!

5) Use words to give directions: Place something (like a doll’s purse) between two chairs, then dialogue with your little one “Pretend that I cant find the Barbie’s favorite purse, but you know where it is!  Without showing me, can you use your words to tell me where it is?”

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A Book about how “Jack” is feeling

Oh, so many uses for such a simple pumpkin template.  Yes, I have yet another use for that simple pdf that I made by copying a pumpkin di-cut, and todays activity idea develops social-emotional skills and reading skills.

All you need to do is print the template, talk with your little ones about feelings that we have and brainstorm a list of them (sad, mad, silly, happy, etc.).  Then, try to make a Jack-O-Lantern expression that matches that emotion.

After doing that, cut them out, have your little one try to help you write the word that sounds out that feeling “/s//a//d/” and put all the jack’s together to make a book.  Give it a title and tah-dah, you have a Book about Jack.

Accomodate each page description with whatever your little one is capable of or interested in.  Your little one might like a more creative description under each jack expression like “Jack-O-Silly”  or your little one might want to make a repetitive book that says “Jack is…” on each page.  Let your little one make it his/her own!

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Pledge Your Allegiance With Your Kids

September 11th is a day that I want to recognize and commemorate by sharing the ways that I have always taught kids about our allegiance to our nation:

Even though I quoted the Pledge of Allegiance EVERY day in grade school verbatim, I still didn’t have a clue what the meaning of it was until about the 4th grade because of the higher order vocab like “allegiance, republic, indivisible, etc.”  You can start introducing a wider vocabulary to kids at a younger age as long as you connect the meaning to those words in multiple ways.  For the pledge (teaching about our allegiance to America), you can do this using:

Activities and Lessons

Books

Pictures

Sign language

Videos

and by using the words in context more often.

The Pledge of Allegiance

Hubbard’s Cupboard has my favorite pictures for kids that are simple and that you can even incorporate into a book printable.  The printables I use most are the “day 2” printables and hey, they are FREE 🙂

You can also put these pictures on cards, whole punch the corner of the cards, and put them on a binder ring to flip each card as you say the pledge.

Can I get a “God Bless America!!!” ???

 

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Uses for a Picture Dictionary

Lately I have been staring at my little one’s picture dictionary and deciding that I am not going to let it collect dust when there ARE plenty of uses for them….no matter your child’s age!

In case you don’t believe me, I was sitting in the back seat with my 15 month old the other day and the only book I had in the back to get him out of his cranky mood was a picture dictionary that I bought at a garage sale.  SO, I decided, let’s practice his oral vocabulary and build on it a little. * I know I know….only a mommy teacher would think this way.  I picked it up, opened to a page with a few familiar images (ball, balloon, banana, etc.) and I started pointing and naming the images he knew with clear enunciation of each word – giving him enough time to repeat me.

He is really articulate for 15 months and has a great memory; so, I thought, hmm…I wonder how long I can make this last if I make a game out of it.
Starting with the pictures he knew, I asked him “Where is the ball?”  I watched his eyes search the page, and then, a light bulb went off!  He pointed to the ball and said “baaaaaaaaawwwwww” in the long, dragged out way he always says ball.  I was so proud, as every biased mother would be! We did this same routine for several other pictures that he knew, for about 10 minutes, and every time we repeated this process on a new page I would introduce one unfamiliar picture.

For those of you cheering “more more!” here are some more ideas:

1)   Have your little one use it as a research tool when they want to find out how to spell something “let’s find the picture under the letter that it starts with and see how it is spelled in a book!”

2)  Play “I spy” a picture that is made up of the sounds /b//e//d/ or /b/ /ed/

Or I spy a picture that has that word “at” in it’s name “bat!”

3)  Get ideas for a letter study….help your little one make a “B” (or any letter) poster and get ideas of what you might draw on the B poster from the picture dictionary.

4)  With your little one’s eyes closed, open the book and randomly place their finger on a picture, see if your little one can sound it out without looking at the word and then check the word beside the picture to see how many sounds “matched.”

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