Enjoying Books Longer

 "Books are a uniquely portable magic."

Stephen King

As an educator I have dozens of favourite books. I love sharing a wonderful text with children during whole group meetings. It's enchanting to become lost in the story with them, and discover parts of the text that I might not have noticed before. Children are careful observers! They point out aspects of books that I have missed even though the books are worn and well loved...small details in the illustrations, joyful narrative, and connections to the world around us. With each reading the book becomes more special and I feel a deeper understanding of what the author and illustrator might have been trying to convey in their telling of the story. 

Because I have so many favourite books I used to treat them like fast food - rushing through text after text and not usually spending more than a day on each. However I have realized that reading books with children is like enjoying a five course meal - better slowly savoured and attuned to the overall experience. This year my goal was to read one book for at least a week - usually one reading per day. I was worried that the children might become bored but after a few months of using this strategy I have noticed the opposite happen. Children are extremely engaged and our conversations about the story tend to deepen each day. I feel like we are learning so much more. Each reading I tend to focus on a different element of the book - listening comprehension, careful attention to the illustrations, a review of new and interesting vocabulary, connections to other books we have read and questions the children might have that need further attention. We have also looked for other versions of the stories (e.g., animated videos, poems, songs) and compared these to the original. Children have been eager to retell the stories in the drama center and sensory tables, and families have been reviewing and reading versions of the texts at home too. Overall it's been an incredibly positive experience. 

I've also noticed that:

~with each subsequent reading children become more familiar with the story and confident sharing their ideas in our discussions

~over the course of the week the children's interest in the characters and understanding of the plot seems to deepen and grow

~children ask richer questions and make more significant connections as they gather more information from the book with each new reading

~as familiarity with new vocabulary grows children appear more comfortable using the words in other learning opportunities

~many children thrive with comfortable routines and hearing a story over and over is reassuring to them, especially first thing in the morning

~with each reading we are able to explore concepts of print more fully (e.g., speech bubbles, the shape and size of fonts)

~we have noticed that the front and back covers and end pages also offer opportunities to make connections and ask questions

~enjoying the text together with children is a bonding moment as we enjoy a special book together

~ often the books lead to some pretty interesting inquiries that extend beyond whole group that the children enjoy researching further

~this approach gives me more time to differentiate experiences related to the text to meet the needs of learners

~children often notice and wonder about math and science questions that are teased from the book with each discussion

I'm excited to continue with this reading strategy and see how far we travel!

The Gingerbread Man Coding Retell

This week we've been reading a favourite winter time story! The children love the adventures the Gingerbread Man has as he runs away from the different characters in the story. They are always so sad at the end when he is eaten by the fox!

 

 

Today I challenged them to retell the story and help the Gingerbread Man outsmart the bakers, cow, goat, cat and fox by using a coding game. This activity helped the children to strengthen their retell as they recalled the story and sequenced the events of the story, and encouraged them to practise their coding skills, specifically oral language related to directionality and number.

 

We used a small stuffed Gingerbread Man, photos of the different characters from the text, our coding board (sensory table lid with tape), and directional coding cards. 

 

First the children placed the different characters on the coding board in order that they are introduced in the text.

After determining the starting and ending location for the Gingerbread Man, the children gave each other oral directions to help move the character around the obstacles in order to avoid them. It was a great way to practice counting, directions, and giving and receiving directions while recalling the events of the story!

 

Success!

In order to make the next attempt more difficult, we added additional obstacles from the story including a barn, pond, haystacks, and a forest. The Gingerbread Man would need to maneuver around these obstacles as well as avoiding the many characters that wanted to eat him!

 

The children loved this challenge and worked together to successfully guide the Gingerbread Man! They had some interesting ways of moving him around the grid and were eager to create very challenging obstacles for their friends to work around!

 

Tomorrow we are going to design and build our own Gingerbread Man traps to help us catch that sneaky guy!

Storytelling Coding

The children continue to express an interest in coding so in order to capitalize on this, I asked them to think about some fun obstacles that they might like to encounter if they could have an adventurous walk to school.

They thought it would be fun to walk through a forest, jump over a lake, move through a city, and go around hot lava! I printed realistic over head pictures after doing a google search and we placed them under our clear plexiglass coding board so they could be easily seen.

The children decided where home was and indicated this with a little wooden house. We used an overhead picture of a school and decided this was the end point. The children decided where the obstacles would be and these were placed underneath the clear coding grid.

One child was the player and another was the programmer. The player was moved around the board based on coding directions from the programmer. The programmer was able to help the player move with the commands 'go up', 'go down', 'go left', 'go right' and 'jump'. We decided quickly that other commands like 'swim' might be fun to try as well!

It was fun to observe the children program the child around the obstacles.

They weren't interested in a clear path to school and instead led each other on whimsical journeys around the board, jumping over water and coming close to the hot lava, even when it wasn't anywhere near the school!

An extension we'd like to try next is to use a favourite read aloud and encourage the children to create the setting and characters for the text. Once they do they can use the coding board to retell the story by mapping out the character's journey through pictures depicting the setting!

Something from Nothing

The children being delighted by Miss J's captivating felt story 'Something from Nothing' during our afternoon circle.