Literacy tasks (2nd Year Studies: Part 2)

As per the continuation of this entry.

Task 6: Review of a Textless Picture Book

Genre: Textless Picture book.
Title: What about me?
Illustrator: Frank Endersby.
Publisher: Child’s Play International Ltd, Holland.

This is a book that depicts a young girl and her experiences with her new born baby sibling. The girl watches as her mother follows the routines of feeding the baby, changing and dressing up the baby. The girl also plays with the baby, and follows along as the parents take the baby in a pram to the park. The story concludes when the father plays a game of ball with her to remind her that she is a member of the family.

Evaluation: I shared this story with a girl, Marie of about 4 years. Marie said she had a baby brother who was just born. She said she had gone to the hospital and seen ambulances. She could also identify with the routines that the baby has such as changing, dressing up, and mostly diapers!

Marie said that her mother had told that she also used to wear diapers but now that she is older, she uses the toilet. Marie said that her mother did not allow her to feed the baby, but she has a baby doll that she feeds, changes and cleans up after. Marie concluded by saying that she loves her baby and wants to play with her baby sibling, but the baby sleeps a lot, so she has to wait till the baby is awake!

Task 7 Review of a Hard Cover Pop Up/Lift-the-Flap Book
Genre: Hard Cover Pop Up/ lift-the-flap book.
Title of book: Where is Maisy?
Author: Lucy Cousins
Illustrator: Lucy Cousins
Publisher: Walker Books, London.
Year Published: 1999.

I shared this story book with children from a group aged 2- 2.5/3 years in the centre where I did my professional experience. (24^th , and 31^st August 2006). According to the group leader of the class, the Maisy series of books was a well known and popular choice of the children in the group.

This activity was done both during choice time activities on a personal one-to-one activity or small group activity, during group times on the mat, or when the children come and ask that the book is read to them. This book talks about Maisy, a female mouse dressed in a striped red-and-green overalls, and her 5 friends who play a game of “hide and seek”.

The goals of the book: the child is able to remember the character and identify if they have found the character of Maisy, by turning the flaps on each page, and identifying if the character is Maisy, or some other character.
Maisy turns up at the last page of the book. This understanding of character recognition is reinforced visually through written words that state “not here!” if the character seen is not Maisy. Each page also asks the same questions with simple words of “Is Maisy in the ___”, depending on the picture illustrated on that page.

A huge majority of the children read to in the group could show their understanding of the story. This is communicated through the use of non-verbal body gestures, such as shaking their heads to state “no”, or verbally stating it out saying “no”, or something similar to it.

Many of the children also could nod excitedly when they came to the last page, and could indicate that the character “is Maisy”. So far, on the days of my practicum at the centre, the children have repeatedly asked for the same book to be read to them through either the group assistant, the group leader, or they could come up to me to ask me to read the book to them.

Task 8: Review of a Picture Book.

Genre: Picture book (Australian storybook).
Title of book: Snap went Chester!
Author: Tania Cox & David Miller.
Illustrator: Tania Cox & David Miller.
Publisher: Hodder Children’s Books, Sydney.
Year Published: 2003
Equipment:

• Apron
• a hand- puppet crocodile
• Safari animal manipulatives.

Evaluation: I shared this book with a 4 year old child in pre-school class. As I was telling the story to the child, I took out the hand puppet crocodile and made snapping motions. Then I asked the child if she wanted to have a try at working with the puppet, which she agreed to.

As we turned the pages, I read the words, and asked her to predict what would happen, and then said to her that if she saw the words ‘SNAP” on the page, that she could “snap” the crocodile. She “snapped” the crocodile and tried to predict and name the animal as we turned the pages.

It was initially a one to one story telling session, but there were other children in the class nearby who saw us working with the hand-puppet crocodile and decided that they wanted to join us. So we read the story together for a few times after that.

After which, I put on the story apron, and then told the children that I had mystery animals in each apron, and that they could put their hands into the pockets to take out the “mystery” animals. I started with the first, and then asked the children if they wanted to had a try at it. The children giggled as they each took a turn at taking the animal out and then made snapping motions at the animals.

I asked if they wanted to do it again, and they repeated this a few times before they decided to work with another activity. I would say that the animals in the story had difficult long names, so I changed it by using familiar animals (with shorter names) that the children were familiar with so that they can snap at the animals.

Task 9: Review of a Picture Book with puppets.
Genre: Picture book.
Title of book: The Big Wide Mouthed Frog.
Author: Ana Martin Larranaga
Publisher: Walker Books, London.
Year Published: 1999
Equipment:

• A sock puppet.
• Cut out drawn stick puppets.
• The storybook “The Big Wide Mouthed Frog”.

Evaluation:
How did the children engage with the story? I shared this story with a group of 4 year old children. Each time I read the words “big wide-mouthed frog”, I curved my mouth as wide as I could and the children imitated the same actions and showed it to their friends. The children could identify the kangaroo, the koala, the possum, the emu, and the crocodile. The children could easily identify the animals except for the possum and the emu, which was not so easily recognizable through the illustrations.

What did they know about how the story developed?
The children knew that the frog was going around and meeting all kinds of different animals as each page was turned. They also knew that the frog asked each animal as it went along what food it ate, and that the frog always gave the same answer “And I eat flies!”. It was only when it reached the last animal, the crocodile, that the frog gave a different answer when the crocodile said that it eats “big wide mouthed frog”.

Did they want to follow up the story episode with further activity?
I asked the children what their favourite animals were and what they ate, and asked the children to describe it. I suggested to the children what about if they showed me what their favourite animals were and what they ate, and they decided to go and draw their favourite animals on paper.

Task 10:
Lesson plan: Mystery Bag.
Purpose of activity: To describe and guess the object that are in the bag.
Equipment:
Knot tie bag, black metal hair pin, battery, white plastic peg, black plastic button, silver metal coin
Age group: 3.5- 4 year olds. This too would depend on the context and how well the adult knows the children are fluent in their oral skills.

How it will be implemented: First, I will bring out the materials in the bag one by one to show to the children. This is for the element of surprise, as well as to maintain order when introducing the activity, or else if I bring all the objects out, the child or children may start fiddling or playing with all of the objects on display.
Then we will discuss each object that is shown and describe its characteristics. It is important that I bring out the object and describe it as children would not want to put their hands into a tie knot bag without knowing what it is inside.

For children who have difficulty in finding the words for describing the objects, this would be a good opportunity for the adult to introduce short and simple new terms for the objects. Then I will put all the objects in the bag. I would ask an older child, or an assistant, and we will demonstrate to the children how the game would be played. Then the teacher will ask a child to volunteer to start playing the game.

Task 11:
Design, describe and explain a literacy rich learning centre/corner in which children can engage in socio-dramatic play. Identify language and literacy outcomes.

Theme of literacy centre: The beach side.
Description:
This centre can be made out of a discussion after the school holidays, as many children may go away to the beach, or at the end of the summer Christmas holidays. Both children and teacher in the class can contribute to the literacy centre. The children can make their own creations and add them to the literacy centre, labeling it with their names, of course. These projects include making

• Shell necklaces
• Drawings of the beach
• Shell mobiles
• Mobiles of sea creatures.
• The teacher can initiate projects relate to the beach such as making an aquarium (out of card boxes) and making fish.

Things that can be placed in the literacy centre:

• A huge beach umbrella.
• Beach towels.
• A beach chair.
• Sun tan lotion
• Sun glasses.
• Beach wear: for young boys and girls.
• Sea shells.
• Bucket
• Spade
• A box with sand
• Labels of objects in different languages.
• A float
• Pictures and paintings of the beach side.
• Pictures or signs at the beach that have to be followed. (different coloured flags denote whether the beach is safe to swim).
• Popular storybook characters going to the beach:- Spot goes to the beach.

Language & Literacy outcomes: The children will learn that

• Different names of the different people who have an important function at the beach. i.e. beach patrol, life guards.
• Different names of the objects that can be normally found/used at the beach: spade, bucket, sand, float, suntan lotion, sunglasses,
  

• Children will learn that the lifeguards patrol the beach and tell swimmers to swim between the right coloured flags and will blow a whistle if anything goes amiss.
• Children will identify that different coloured flags means that the tide is in and it is not safe to swim on that day.
• Children will learn that people make objects out of seashells and sell it for a living.