Bring Children’s Stories to Life
September 3, 2009 by Writing for Children
Filed under teaching tips
by Kathy Stemke, Contributing Editor
Young children learn by reading books and participating in experimentation and play. Books increase their vocabulary and understanding about many exciting subjects. Reading opens up new worlds and cultures to them. It can also enhance their social skills. Reading print books improves their eye-hand coordination as they turn the pages, and e-books teach them computer skills. Most of all, reading is a source of good, wholesome fun! Our job, as parents and teachers, is to bring books to life, and give children opportunities to experience the lifelong pleasure of reading. Try some of the following activities with your children to bring their stories to life.
Make a book of your favorite story characters with drawings. It might be fun to cut out figures and use crayons for their clothing and details. Make a colorful timeline of your favorite story.
Create sock or paper bag puppets of your favorite characters and put on a puppet show. You could even extend the story to show what happens next.
You and your friends dress up like your favorite book characters, and have a tea party. What would Snow White say to Amelia Bedelia?
Make a character mobile for your room. You can criss-cross two metal hangers and use string to hang your characters on. You could even use lightweight real objects or felt objects to represent the book.
Sculpt your favorite children’s story character from soap, clay or paper mache.
Build a diorama of a scene from the story. Use a shoebox, smaller boxes, pieces of wood, magazine pictures, construction paper, crayons, paint, cotton, grass, twigs, toilet paper rolls, and anything else you can find to make the needed objects.
Create your own website or blog about your favorite story and characters.
Draw a fancy family tree with your favorite characters and their relatives real or imagined. You can add a line or two about their personalities.
Use scraps of material to design costumes of the characters in your favorite story and put on a play or dance concert for the neighborhood.
Write a poem about your favorite character. Have your favorite character write his or her own poem.
Make a rhyming book. Staple some pages together to make your own book. Pick out an object from your favorite story to draw on each page. Roll one die to see how many rhyming words you need to add for each page. Foe example, if you draw a cat, write hat, mat, bat, fat, sat, and rat under it. (Kids can read their own book over and over again.)
Have family members each read a different character’s lines using appropriate voices. One person needs to be the narrator. Have one person make sound effects during a reading. (wind, rain, bells, barking, crashing noises, crying, doors closing, etc)
Start a kid’s book club with your friends. This website will take you through the process.
Make a snack or meal that your story character would eat. If your reading a story about pigs, make pig head cookies with pink icing, pink marshmallows, and M & M’s for eyes.
Make stick puppets and put on a shadow play of the story. In other words, use a strong flashlight, create shadows on the wall with your puppets, and act out the story.
Design masks for each character from paper plates and have a parade.
Gather your stuffed animals and superheroes on your bed and read a bedtime story to them every night.
Write a fractured fairy tale. Change a classic story to different characters, a different ending, or rewrite the story from a different point of view.
If you introduce some of these activities to your children, they will surprise you with some ideas of their own. The activities and fun are only limited by their imagination.
The Importance of Multicultural Literature
July 2, 2009 by Writing for Children
Filed under teaching tips
by Kathy Stemke, Contributing Editor
Multicultural literature that represents any cultural group through accurate portrayal and rich detail has become an important ingredient in education. Books with characters of similar backgrounds, familial situations, of a close age, similar ethnicity, or living in familiar geographical settings can be useful tools in guiding children to discover who they are and where they fit into their communities. These books offer motivation for more reading and inspiration to pursue goals because someone like them did the same thing. They also help children solve problems by seeing how others solve similar problems. Children must to be able to find books that focus on many ethnic identities and backgrounds to help develop the sense of self so important to growing up and to the appreciation of others and the world around them.
A great book to use in conjunction with a multicultural lesson is Shoes, Shoes, Shoes by Ann Morris. It features shoes from around the world. After you read this book, talk about individuality and diversity. The following shoe measurement activity celebrates diversity and requires measurement skills, art, body parts identification, and matching skills.
1. Each child traces both his shoes on construction paper, and cuts them out.
2. The children measure the length to the nearest inch, and writes it on the feet.
3. Trace your own shoes and add several others of various sizes.
4. Let the children measure the other feet and record the lengths.
5. The kids can take turns matching up the feet first with the measurement side showing.
6. Now flip the shoes over and see if they can still match up the feet in pairs.
7. The children can practice counting by twos.
8. Now each child can use their art skills to decorate their own set of feet.
9. You can make a great bulletin board of feet, each with the child’s picture next to their feet.
10. Laminate all the other feet. Tape them to the floor in pairs. Have the children jump from pair to pair counting by twos.
Multicultural books:
China Ancient Arts and Sciences by the Franklin Institute includes inventions like the compass, papermaking, printing, and gunpowder.
A Birthday Basket for Tia by Pat Mora. Colorful papercut illustrations accompany this story of Cecilia as she prepares a surprise gift for her great-aunt’s ninetieth birthday with the help and interference of her cat, Chica.
Friends From the Other Side -Amigos del Otro Lado by Gloria Anzaldua. This is a bilingual story of Prietita, a brave young Mexican American girl who befriends and helps Joaquin after he crosses the Rio Grande into Texas with his mother in search of a new life.
The Lotus Seed by S. Garland. Throughout her life, Grandmother has carried a special lotus seed. When her grandson buries the seed, a beautiful pink blossom appears in the garden — a reminder that this symbol of her homeland will bloom wherever it is planted.
Light the Lights written by Margaret Moorman. One of very few pictures books about interfaith holiday celebrations, this is the story of a little girl named Emma whose family happily celebrates both Hannukah and Christmas.
The Butter Man by A. Alalou and E. L. Alalou. During a famine Nora’s grandfather must travel over the mountain to find work so he can provide food for his family. While young Ali waits for his father’s return, he learns a lesson of patience, perseverance, and hope. Fold-art illustrations capture the Moroccan culture and landscape.
Halmoni’s Day by E. C. Bercaw. Jennifer’s grandmother, Halmoni, is visiting all the way from Korea. She’s arrived just in time for Grandparents’ Day at school but she doesn’t speak English. As this moving story shows, there are many ways to express love–ways that bridge differences in generations and cultures.
How My Parents Learned to Eat by I. R. Friedman. An American sailor courts a Japanese girl and each tries, in secret, to learn the other’s way of eating.
Colors of Japan by H. Littlefield. Each double-page spread features one color and includes the Japanese word for the color, along with the pronunciation. The brief text contains basic information about history, daily life, traditions, population, schools, and geography.
In a Circle Long Ago: A Treasury of Native Lore by Nancy Van Laan. This is an impressive collection of Native American tales, songs, and poetry from the Arctic North to the Florida Everglades.
To purchase any of these books, visit our Book Store.
******************
Kathy Stemke is a freelance writer, author, and educator. Sign up for FREE monthly newsletter here!
