Day 30 SoL Story Challenge: Oral Storytelling and Revision

Join hundreds of students and teachers as we share stories every day in March!

For the past week or so, Little L has figured out that I cannot resist letting her stay up a few extra minutes to record a story before bedtime. It's becoming a new bedtime routine! (Not sure yet if it's one I really want to keep… we'll see…)

L surprised me tonight. For weeks her stories have revolved around chipmunks, squirrels, bunnies, and other woodland critters in different fantastical, magical settings and situations. Tonight she told a much more realistic story, with dogs as the main characters, a throwback to her her "younger" days. (I know, she's four, how much younger can you really get! But the three year old Little L used to exclusively tell stories about our dog and dogs in general).

Doggy Runs Away

Once upon a time there was a little puppy and its mother was a golden retriever, and it was a polka dot… it was a silver polka dotted golden retriever, and they lived together in a dog house. And their owner… and the mom person was Goldie, and the little one was Jamie, and the dad was Richard, and the dog… and those were the two pets. And one day the doggies decided that they wanted to… um… run away… so the two dogs ran away. And the next morning when the owners woke up they didn't' see the dogs in the doghouse. Then they looked and looked and looked and looked and LOOKED and LOOKED and LOOKED but they could not find the dogs. So they went to dog proovenary (???) shows. And they found the dogs and brought them home and put a fence around their doghouse so they wouldn't run away again. The… and they got to go to dog races training, and the end. And the dog race training, you get... dogs get to be trained how to do human stuff. The end.

Just after I put the camera down, Little L said, "I know why the dogs wanted to run away."

"Oh, really?" I asked.

"Yeah, they really wanted to go to dog race training school."

"Well, you could tell the story again and put that in there. You could have them talk to each other, so that it shows what they're thinking. You know, about sneaking off to go to dog race training school."

"Can I stay up and do it over?" L asked excitedly.

I sighed. "Sure, why not?"

Once upon a time there was two dogs. And Lucy, and… Once upon a time there was a little girl and her name was Carrie, uh… Carrager… no… yeah, and her name was Lucy… and Lucy, um, REALLY wanted a puppy golden retriever and a mom golden retriever and her mom said, "No… No Lucy we can't, cuz theyll… cuz cuz they won't stay at home." 

"Aw, don't worry. Golden retrievers puppies and moms are the best at staying. Kids, dads, they run away. That's all it is," said Lucy. 

"Come on Lucy" 

So… finally, finally her mom letted her get a puppy golden retriever and a mom golden retriever, and then the, the first night they got them one  said, "Lets go to dog training race school" 

But the other one said "No, cause our owners won't let them." 

THen the other, then the puppy said, "Hey I know, let's sneak OUT now."  So they snuck out… ooop. 

Today race, the dog race, the dog, the animal race training school. 

And then the next morning they woke up, and then the golden retrievers were missing. Then they looked and looked and looked and looked and looked and looked and looked but they couldn't find the golden retrievers. So they decided to look at the animal race training school. And they were there. And finally they figured out. They should bring them back home, put  them in the doghouse and put a fence around so they should never ever escape again.

The end. 

Little L sat for a few seconds in thought. I was putting my camera down and about to tuck her in to bed when she said, "And the moral of the story is…" I scrambled for my camera! How could I miss this!

"Wait! Do it again!"

"And the moral of the story is… if you ever lose your pet, go look for it. The end. Done. The end."

Notes: I have no idea when we read a story that a moral of the story ending--maybe she heard one at school. I also have no idea where the names Lucy, Jamie, Carrie, and Richard come from, they seem more like names from my generation than hers! The golden retriever thing sort of makes sense because she asks me constantly to tell stories about my dog, Bob, a golden retriever that I grew up with.

In the classroom, when I'm working with young kids, I often give time for kids to tell their stories aloud many times to their writing partner to rehearse before they write. This encourages them to revise their story again and again before they even put their pen on the page. Some prompts I often use to encourage revision in oral storytelling include:

* Put in what you were saying. "I said…"
* Describewhat things looked like. "I saw…"
* Describe what things felt like. "I felt…"
* Put in what you were thinking. "I thought…"
* Say exactly what you were doing. "I was…"
* Try using expression in your voice so it's very exciting, or scary, or calm like it's a bedtime story, or fancy like it's a fairy tale.
* Try using gestures or drama to act out your story as you tell it.

A little prompting goes a long, long way. I usually just pick one and give kids time to play around with it. Like with L. Just prompting for a little dialogue transformed the second version of her doggy story!

Day 26 SoL Story Challenge: The Story of Crafty Bear

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I sat on the couch with Baby J. in my lap while Little L. built a submarine out of Legos for "Crafty Bear" and "all the chipmunks" on the coffee table. Crafty Bear is the star of a story that Little L. and my husband have been making up for the past day or two. The story basically goes like this:

Once there was a bear named Crafty Bear. He has a friend, Chipmunk, and they find a book that some campers left that was a book of the world with a map of the world. They saw some pictures of a kangaroo and they decided they wanted to see the kangaroo. Crafty Bear happens to be a genius engineer and they decide to build a submarine. His bear friends help him build the submarine, but the bears are too scared to go into the submarine-- except for Crafty Bear. His chipmunk friends are wild and crazy, and they're ready for adventure. So, Crafty Bear designs this amazing submarine that has lots of windows and is the shape of a shark to fool the sharks. It has a big metal tree inside in the shape of a den for chipmunks, so the chipmunks just moved all their stuff in…They go on adventures-- the Marianas Trench, and down in the trench they discover treasure that has four crystals that tell you where the lost city of Atlantis is.

At school, Little L. drew this with Crafty Bear in mind:

"This is the map. There is a red lava pit and a magical blue lake. You have to follow the green trail, then the red trail, then the purple trail, then this trail."

"You follow all the right trails and it leads your o the room full of magic keys. See, there are lots of them."

There's much, much, much more where this came from. Little L. will ask, "Can you tell some more Crafty Bear?" and  my husband will say a sentence or two, and after a few lines, Little L. will take over the storytelling.

I watched while Little L. worked on her Lego submarine. "L., can I videotape the Crafty Bear story?"

"Argh! Let me just tell you. Don't videotape it!"

So… no video tonight. But now you know all about Crafty Bear and his band of adventurous chipmunk friends.

Day 24 SoL Story Challenge: A Planned Story

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The four of us sat around the kitchen table for dinner. Little L sat in her "special chair," a chair that can be adjusted in height so that she can reach the table, and three month old Baby J sat in the highchair for the first time.

"So L, what should we write about tonight?" I asked. Little L has been helping me create my posts for this blog each day, mostly by telling stories that I videotape.

For a moment I wasn't sure if L would cooperate. More than once during the SOLSC I've had to do dome cajoling to get a story. 

"I want to tell you a story about a run-away, then find, then lost kind of a story." I knew what she meant. She had a plan for her story; it was just a bit jumbled.

I resisted the temptation to immediately correct her by restating  it. Instead I said, "Wait, I'm confused. It really happens in that order?" Little L just looked back at me blankly. It occurred to me that she perhaps had never heard that phrase: "in that order."

So I asked, "Does your story end with being lost?"

"No!" Little L laughed like that was just plain silly, to end a story that way. "It goes like...first there's getting hidden or running off, then there's being lost, then there's getting found." 

"Oh! That makes a lit more sense to me," I said, proud that she was able to revise her plan to have the sequence make more sense. "May I record your story now?"

"I want to tell it at bedtime," L said.

So later in the evening, after dinner and more storytelling, and cleaning up, and baths, and putting on pajamas, and brushing teeth, and bedtime stories, just before getting tucked in L asked if she could record her story.

Here it is, just as she had planned:

"Illustrated" by Little L. "Asked" by Little L.'s mommy.

Day 22 SoL Story Challenge: Why We Don't Write On Kids' Work

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My four year old daughter will be the first to tell you that she does not like it when adults write on her work.

"Mommy, I don't like it when somebody else writes on my story."

"Mommy, [insert name of well intentioned adult] keeps on writing on my stories and I don't like it."

Or my favorite, overheard while drawing with an older cousin: "How would you feel if I wrote on your work?"

Don't get me wrong, some kids have no problem stepping aside and allowing someone to swoop in and write the words for them. I experience this often when I work in pre-k and kindergarten classrooms. I can see them, staring at me with puppy dog eyes from across the classroom. Their eyes speak to me. Come to me. I'm just a little kindergartener. Puhleeez do my writing for me… At least just sit with me and give me attention. I like it when you sit with me. Puhleeez?  However, when it comes to independent writing and drawing, I know better than to lay a finger on their work.  Kids are very, very, VERY smart. I know that if I give in even just one little time, then they will hope and expect for someone to swoop in every time and write or spell some words, or even draw for them. It's the same thing with zipping up jackets, or putting on boots, or wiping their noses. Consistency fosters independence--as long as your expectations for what children can do on their own is appropriate for their ages and stages.

I was so happy when I saw this come home from L.'s preschool the other day:

I have a very strong feeling that had Little L.'s teacher written this ON L.'s picture instead of separately, LittlebL. would have either A) thrown a fit, or B) said very little, dictating slowly to the teacher something like "This…is…a…tree." or C) decided not to draw with so much detail if she sensed the teacher was really looking for words on the page. I've witnessed these reactions again and again in early childhood settings.

When I confer with very young writers, I usually say something like, "Tell me all about this!" or "Tell me about your picture," or "How does your story go?" Then as they talk, I discreetly jot down notes, verbatim as much as possible. I always have a clipboard with me when I confer (see this older post about conferring notes on TWT), and I just use a piece of blank paper to take a dictation instead of a conferring form. If kids ask what I'm doing, I just tell them, "I'm just taking notes so I don't forget all this great work you're doing!"

Day 10 SoL Story Challenge: Knock Knock Who's There?

Join hundreds of students and teachers as we challenge ourselves to write a story from our own lives every day for the month of March!

Yesterday, Little L. was telling knock knock jokes non stop all day long. Breakfast…lunch… dinner.. bed time… all day long. I guess she was just in a knock knock mood. She's in that stage where she totally gets the knock knock jokes that I tell to her--but her own jokes don't really make sense. Personally, I think that's what makes her jokes funny.  Here's a little "slice" of her jokes:

I, personally, love knock knock jokes. The cornier, the better. I've never understood how some people just don't like them! They're hilarious to me!

Here are some of my favorites that I tell to Little L. all the time:

Knock knock…
Who's there?
Lettuce.
Lettuce who?
Lettuce in, it's cold out here!

Knock knock…
Who's there?
Boo!
Boo who?
Don't cry, it's only a joke!

Knock knock…
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Banana.
Banana who?
Banana.
Banana who?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn't say banana again?

And my all time favorite:

Knock knock…
Who's there?
The interrupting cow.
The interrup---
MOO!

Jokes are great for vocabulary and language. Kids have to infer to get the meaning, sometimes by reading between the lines, sometimes by interpreting the meaning of an expression or idiom. And yes…puns! (Again, I just don't understand how puns are not funny). Puns are great-- homophones that kids have to figure out in context in order for it to make sense. What a great way to study words!

Also, humor can engage kids who might otherwise not be interested in reading or writing. That kid who sits all through reading workshop, staring at the pages of some chapter book that she picked just because her friends were reading it? Help her out. Find a funny book together and bring her reading life back to life.

My colleague, Colleen Cruz, not long ago tweeted this great idea for the classroom library:

No, funny books may not always be great "literature," and no, a steady diet of Captain Underpants and nothing else is not exactly what I envision for a well-rounded reader (sorry Dav Pilkey…). But there's nothing better than laughing out lout to help you fall in love with reading. I think we can all agree on that. 

In the comments, leave your favorite knock knock joke. Tell a joke today or read a funny book. Enjoy!

Day 9 SoL Story Challenge: Legos and Storytelling

Join hundreds of teachers and students as we practice our own writing this month. We're writing a story a day every day in March.

We are Lego maniacs in our family. I mean all of us, including the cousins. A typical night in our house involves the whole family sitting around the coffee table, building cities and kingdoms, making vehicles and machines, and inventing our own creations.

My husband and I both grew up on Legos, so playing with L. and her cousins reminds of us our own childhood--only the Legos now are way cooler than what we had. So many new colors, shapes, pieces, figures. They even have little animal Lego pieces now!

It goes without saying that all the children in our extended family have seen the new Lego Movie at least twice (and three or four times in my nephew K's case). Baby J. and I are the only ones who have not seen the movie, but I feel like I know it because lines and scenes from the movie have been appropriated by L and her cousins as common threads in their play.

This morning was a beautiful, clear sunny March day here in northern Vermont where we live. L. was up bright and early to play Legos before going skiing with Daddy.

So often, play is taken for granted. How many times have I heard myself say in my work with teachers, "It's important for kids to play," but in my busy day, how often do I really sit down and observe what's happening in L.'s play? Not as often as I wish. This morning, I watched closely, and this is a little bit of what I saw:

This goes on and on and on. She stays incredibly focused, not even realizing that I'm recording her. The story takes twists and turns: the airplane takes off, but then it breaks, so it turns out that it's the bad guy's fault, and the other characters decide to kick him off the coffee table using a small catapult that L. has built… and the story continues...

In L.'s play I noticed a lot of literacy going on:

• an understanding of archetypes (good guys, bad guys)
• understanding that characters can change (later, the "bad guy" turns good after being kicked off the coffee table, but it's too late… the "good guys" have turned bad so he has nobody to play with…)
• action! (who says girls don't like action movies?)
• lots and lots of dialogue
• expressive storytelling (different voices for different characters)
• lots of problem solving (fitting the characters in, building with the Legos, making the story work with the props she has)
• revision (L. is retelling snippets of the movie, but revising them to suit her needs)
• fine motor skills (not the main event in this case, but a nice bonus)

I think that a great workshop idea in the primary grades (or even in the upper grades too) would be to have kids play for a few minutes with some figurines or even Legos, and then have them write their stories. They could reenact true stories, if the unit is personal narrative, or create new stories for fiction. I might set up little baskets of figures and props at each table and invite kids to engage in some dramatic play for a few minutes at the start of writing workshop, and then draw and write for the rest of the time.  This could support oral language, rehearsal , revision, planning, and would also be a social experience for kids, building community and encouraging kids to talk and share their ideas.

In the comments section, let me know if you've tried something like this already, and how did it go? Suggestions for materials?

In the meantime, I've got to get off this computer and go play with more Legos!

Day 7 SoL Story Challenge: The 'Hello Box' Poem

Join nearly 200 teachers as we practice our own writing by sharing a story from our lives each day in the month of March!

It's only been one week, working on the March Slice of Life Story Challenge, and I've already learned so much!

I've been watching the way my colleague, Stacey, uses technology on her blog, Raise a Literate Human: Vines, Skitch, ThingLink, and other cool techno doodads pepper her blog. There's always something neat there.

I've been inspired and awed by the way some bloggers are approaching this challenge with so much bravery and courage, the way Kris Shrontz has been doing on her blog, I Survived Today. As I learned from my colleague Betsy's thoughtful post, this is Kris's first time participating in the challenge, so visit her and give her some love. Betsy's post in and of itself is an inspiration for this post-- why had I not thought about using my blog to recommend other blogs before? Thanks Betsy!

And I've been loving the way Kevin Hodgson has been commenting all over the blogosphere using poems! It's creative and thoughtful and lovely. So cool.

This morning, I discovered Margaret Simon hosting the Friday Poetry Roundup on her blog, Reflections on the Teche and this inspired me to ditch my original plans for this morning's post and write create a new one.

Little L. has poetry in her veins, I think. Watch her make one up on the spot:

Hello, hello.

I'm a Hello Box.

And I have a pet bunny saying boing boing boing

And a owl pet that says hoo hoo hoo

And a dinosaur pet that goes roar roar roar

And a bird pet that goes chirp chirp chirp

And a chipmunk pet that goes snk snk snk

And a mouse pet that goes squeak squeak squeak

And I let them say hello hello hello hello!

Whenever they want.

And I don't let you say hello hello hello hello

Everyone

Heeeello

Hello HELLO

Heeeello hello hello.

I just like it when my animals say hello

Hello. Hello lo lo. Hello.

And… the end.

Maybe Little L.'s poem will be inspiration or for some other tiny poets somewhere?

A few strategies I notice Little L. uses to create her poem:
* she pretends that the object is alive (metaphor)
* she organizes/structures her thoughts (a pattern, and "parts" of the poem, or verses)
* her poem has a clear beginning and ending, starting and and ending in similar ways (in the classroom I might call this a "sandwich structure" when the beginning and ending of a poem are similar, with the rest sandwiched between)
* she uses interesting word choices (precise animal sounds)
* she elaborates (not just one animal--lots!)
* repetition (lots of it)
* she's got rhythm (mostly)

Howd'ya like them apples, Common Core State Standards! (Just kidding. She's four years old. We're trying not to worry about that right now. I can't help thinking like a teacher… It's not like there's a switch to turn it off.)

Poetry Friday!

Day 4 SoL Story Challenge: How Was School Today?

If you've been following this blog, then you know that Little L. is quite the chatty one. Usually. That's until you ask her about her school day. Then, suddenly, all she's got is one word answers.  "Argh. Nothing!" is her typical response to "What did you do at school today?".

Not to worry, though. I'm trained to teach kids to tell stories. That's, you know, my job in real life. To teach kids how to tell stories.

In a classroom, when a kid is having trouble coming up with what to say, I might use some open ended questions to get them going. I might say:

"What happened first?"

"What's just one thing that happened?"

"Who was there?"

"What were you doing?"

And then I might use some prompts like "First…then… next…" or "After that…" or "Finally…" to lead them into narrative structure. I might even get them to use dialogue by prompting, "And then you said…" or "He/she said…"

Combine these prompts with some good old fashioned five second wait time and my success rate with coaching kiddos to tell their stories is 99.9%. (One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi, four-Mississippi, five-Mississippi. It's a long time.).

These prompts and a few others usually work like a charm on little kids. Not to toot my own horn, but teachers in my labsites often marvel at my magical writing teacher powers. I frequently get comments from others like, "That's the most he's ever spoken!" or "She usually just tells the same story every day! How do you do it?"

Well, apparently my magical writing teacher powers are no good within the walls of my own home. 

Here's my own flesh and blood, yesterday afternoon, during after school snack. I practically had to pull the story out of her, and she ends by letting me know that "If I tell another it'll be my garbage." She's obsessed with telling stories about Garbage Lizard (see yesterday's post for more about Garbage Lizard): 

I heard somewhere, that with preschoolers it helps if you wait until bedtime to ask them about their school day, rather than right after school. So, I tried that. Here's what I got:

Sigh. Better luck next time. I should have gone with the owl story she seemed excited to tell. That'll teach me for trying to assign a topic. Choice is always a better way to go.

Speaking of next time, this article here, contains a list of some very good ideas for getting young kids to talk about their school day. And this one here has some advice for getting kids to open up and talk in general. If you have any tips of your own, please share below in the comments!

A Book, Authored by Little L.

Here's Little L.'s latest book! She drew it and told it all by herself! The captions are her words exactly. Enjoy!

By Lily, [Book] 1

"The title is Color."

Page left: "First the little girl and her daddy woke up."
Page right: "And then they played outside in the SUNSHINE!"

"And they played outside, and then they went to sleep, and then it was night time."

"And then the next morning, it was thundering and lightening and rainy. The little girl and her daddy waited for the storm to pass."

Page left: "It's sunny and then the little girl and her daddy go out to play. But before they knew it, a storm was coming. They heard the thunder off in the distance."
Page right: "Then they hurried inside."

"And now for the final page. It's sunny again through all those storms. The sun was shining brighter than they had ever seen in their house. And they lived happily ever after."

THE END

And here's how she did it:

1. I stapled together pages of white printer paper, and asked L., "Would you like to make a book?" I said this with lots of enthusiasm, like an invitation to do something really, really special.

2. I pointed to the first page and said, "What happens first?" She told me the story aloud first, and then I said, "Great story! Draw it!" and she went to town.

3. As soon as she had drawn everything that she wanted for the first pages of her story, I turned the page and said, "What happens next?" She told me, and then again I said, "Wow! Draw it so we don't forget it!"

4. I continued this way, nudging her to turn the page before putting the whole story on one page, and asking her to tell the story aloud before drawing. As we neared the final page of the book, she started planning out how the story would end. As she drew the last few pages she told the story aloud several different ways, finally deciding on the beautiful ending that you see in her book.

Some tips:
1. Encourage your children do their own work all by themselves, with minimal intervention from you. For example, when L. first got started she turned to me and said, "I don't know how to draw a house. Draw it for me." I said, "Well, think about the shape of a house. It's kind of like a square." On a separate piece of paper I drew a very simple square shaped house. L. looked at it, and said, "I'm just going to do it this way." And she drew a circle around the little girl and her daddy to represent their house.

2. Be proud of whatever stage your child is at.  When L. was still in the scribbling stage (which she still enjoys quite a bit), I would still say, "Wow, tell me about this!" or "What's happening on this page?" To her, those little squiggly lines held meaning.

3. Resist spelling words for your child, and especially resist writing on her paper. As soon as your child sees you writing on her paper, a little switch goes off in her mind. She thinks to herself, "Aha! All I have to do is get a grown up to do it for me!" To foster independence and a sense of ownership, try to be very consistent about not writing on your child's work.  (The one exception might be if, from the start, you say, "Let's make something TOGETHER." so that it's clear that it's yours as much as your child's work).

4. Take a dictation of your child's writing word-for-word on separate paper or post-its. Don't change a thing! Even if your child is stringing together words with strange sentence grammar, or if it doesn't make that much sense to you. Think of it like a photograph--You'll want to remember this stage later!

Scribbling: Circular Stage

Little L. said: "Circles!"

Little L. said: "This is rain. This is Pooh Bear. This Mommy. Daddy... Mimi... Grandpa..."

Yes, there are stages to scribbling! Little L. is in the late Circular stage, early Naming stage!

Click here if you want to find out the stage of your own tiny artist or writer.

Try these handy tips:

1. Compliment your child's work by naming what you see, reinforcing her newfound skills as well as vocabulary. If you can name it, she can learn what it is called. Try saying things like,"I see straight/curvy/zig zag lines!" or "I see circles/dots/curves!" or "I see lots of blue on your page, and even a little bit of yellow!" After a short amount of time, you'll hear her naming her own work!

2. Keep materials easily accessible. If you have to dig out the paper and crayons from the bottom of a closet or a drawer, you and your child will be less likely to spend 5-10 minutes drawing. Try an easel or large notebook set up with not-too-messy materials. Tape the paper down so she's less likely to rip it apart. A few washable crayons are pretty easy to manage and pose little danger to your furniture and walls--they really are washable--trust me! (Hint: The fatter the marker or crayon, the harder it can be for your child to use a three-finger grip. Really fat crayons and markers force your child to fist it rather than pinch it. Try having a variety of art materials, both fat and skinny, for fine motor skills, and also just for fun!)

3. Make time every day. While I'm making my coffee in the morning is one of Little L.'s favorite easel times. She hunkers down with markers and crayons for just the right amount of time for me to pour it, add milk and sugar, down half of it while I still have a chance!

Experimenting with Magic Markers and Ice

This post is especially for teachers I work with. Next year we will all be trying out a new unit of study in science and writing workshop. We'll teach the kids how to design their own experiments, and how to write up their results. Baby L and I tried it out the other day, and here's how it went. (You could use the same materials for experiments with your kids, or you could use our "lab report" as a mentor text for their writing.)

Whether you are a teacher, a parent, or caregiver reading this, have fun doing experiments with your tiny scientist! If you know some great links to other fun easy experiments, please share!

Baby L's Lab Report

The questions we had:

What happens when you color on ice with magic markers?

What happens when you stir water with a magic marker?

What happens when you mix the colors?

What happens to soap suds when you add color?

What we used:

1. bowls of water

2. ice cubes

3. markers (nontoxic, washable)

4. some bubble soap

5. spoons and cups

What we did:

1. We had a giant chunk of ice-cubes that had melted together in the ice-tray in the freezer, so we took that out and put it in the big wooden bowl.

2. We poured some water on it to see what would happen. Not much. It made the ice chunk look shiny and slippery.

3. We colored on the ice chunk with magic markers. It was so cool! The ice turned different colors!

4. We poured some more water on the ice chunk, so now there was lots of water in the bowl. The water changed to the color of the magic markers!

5. We moved some of the ice into a new bowl. The ice was clean! No colors when we moved it!

6. We colored the clean ice and poured water on it. The same thing happened- the water changed colors again!

7. Then we poured a little water with no ice into a third bowl and stirred it with a marker. The water changed colors!

8. Last, we stuck in some hand soap to see what would happen. We made lots of suds, but the suds didn't really change color even when we stirred in more magic marker!

New Words for Baby L:

Melt

Drip

Suds

Mix

Stir

Frozen

Pour

Slippery

Easter Egg Hunt=Grammar Lesson?

Baby L, Daddy B, and I went to our first Easter Egg Hunt this weekend at McCarren Park! It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and Baby L filled a shopping bag full of eggs. We put lots of them back for other kids to find, and still had a ton to take home.

Later that night, after Baby L went to bed, I emptied out all the eggs and cleaned them up so L could play with them in her play kitchen. As I popped open each egg and removed whatever candy or toys were inside it dawned on me that we could hide the eggs all over again in the house--why wait until Easter? What a fun game to play!

So that night I filled the eggs back up with stickers and hid them all over the house. Since L is only 1.5 years old, I hid them in plain sight. I didn't want her to lose interest after finding the first egg.

The next morning, Baby L found the first few "hidden" eggs immediately. It's easy to see why:









After she found the eggs on the stools, we started giving her clues to find the rest. "Look under the baby doll.... next to the wagon... on top of the coffee table..."

L totally understood that we were telling her generally where to look, but the prepositions-- under, over, in, on... those were tricky for her. We coached her with gestures, we pointed, we restated, we repeated and emphasized certain words. What great practice with grammar! said the teacher-voice inside my head. Oh just have fun...don't ruin it with grammar! said the non-teacher voice inside my head...as usual.

Either way, L loves our new game!

Note:
Teachers are constantly asking me for ideas for how to teach grammar. A really great resource for teachers of older children is The Power of Grammar, by Mary Ehrenworth and Vicki Vinton. You'll find lots of smart ways to teach grammar in a way that calls upon children's abilities to think creatively and meaningfully, rather than memorizing a bunch of grammar rules for a test, or filling out worksheets.

Make March Music in Your House Month

I just learned from another blogger that March is Music in Our Schools Month. Yippee!

Baby L. comes from a musical family - Daddy plays guitar, and so does Grandpa J. (You can hear a clip of Grandpa J. here!) Great Grandpa E. plays the clarinet, and her Great Uncle T. plays drums. There's even a family band and a few albums that Grandpa J. made in his recording studio! Mommy was a band geek in high school and college, and her Grandpa K. knows every piece of trivia you ever could imagine about every jazz, blues, soul, and rock and roll artist ever.

So it's in Baby L.'s blood and it shows. She LOVES music.

To foster her love of music, Baby L. has a box of her own instruments that she often goes to. We always have music on in our house, and she'll often start dancing in the middle of doing something else when she hears a good tune! She'll even pick up her instruments and play along, sometimes she'll even "sing."

Here are some tips for supporting musical kids in your family or classroom:

1. Have music on whenever you can

2. Play lots of different kinds of music, even if they aren't your personal preferences

3. Talk about the music. Name and talk about the instruments you hear if you can

4. Clap, dance, and sing along with the music

5. Make a box of instruments - it's easy! (see below)

6. If you can, seek out music classes in your neighborhood or town. Often the local library, school, or YMCA offers music classes or sing-a-longs for free, or for low cost. It's great for your child to see other kids and grown-ups who like to sing and dance as much as they do.

7. Encourage your child to make up songs! (Even those "songs" that you don't think really sound like songs).

Some instruments you can make:

1. Fill an old plastic bottle with beads, pasta, beans, or coins to make a shaker. Use a drop of glue to seal the cap on so that your baby or toddler can't get it open.

2. Save the tubes from your paper towels. We call them Der-Der Tubes in our house because you can hold them up to your mouth and sing "Der der der der!" An instant trumpet!

3. Cookie tins make great drums - so do oatmeal containers!

4.Good ol' pots and pans are always fun to bang on!

5. You can clap two blocks together to make a great sound along with the beat of a fun song.

6. Your child's baby rattles can go into their instrument box as they get older.

All this music is great for a budding reader or writer, believe it or not. Lyrics to songs build vocabulary, as well as oral language fluency and expression. Clapping, dancing, and playing instruments along to the beat of a song supports phonological awareness - hearing the sounds in language. Just google "music and baby brain development" and a zillion academic research articles appear. Whether you buy into the "Mozart effect" or not, music is a great way to engage your little one in the world of language, words, communication, and fun!

***

Note: (I personal feel that the catch phrase "Mozart effect" it is a bit oversimplified - though it sounds wonderful, and there are some intriguing studies on the short and long term effects of listening to classical music. Some researchers explain that simply playing Mozart to your baby is not going to make her smarter. However, families who provide music, singing, a love of those kinds of things, are likely to be the kinds of families who provide lots of other great support too - books, language, stories, and lots more.)

Wee Wee Wee!

One of our favorite games with Baby L is the one where we say "Where's your ______?" and she points to the body part and says it. She's only 16 months old, so it sounds like this:

Me: "Baby L, where's your head?"

Baby L: "Het. Het. Het." (taps her head)

Me: "Where are your eyes?"

Baby L: "Eyes!" (She blinks really fast.)

Me: "Where are your ears?"

Baby L: (She responds by tugging her cute little ear lobes.)

Me: "Where are your hands?"

Baby L: "Heh. Heh." (She waves.)

Me: "Fingers?"

Baby L: (She wiggles her fingers.)

Me: "Belly button?"

Baby L: (She points to her neck--which seems odd, but it's because in the book Where's Baby's Belly Button, Baby L lifts the flap on the belly button page, and the baby in the illustration has her hands pointing to her neck! Click on the link to see what I mean. It's adorable.)

Her cutest response of all?

Me: "Baby L, where are your toes?"

Baby L: Grabs her toes and says, "Wee wee wee!"

Note: The reading teacher in me is very proud of the text-self connections my baby girl is making here. Usually we think of readers bringing what they know from personal experience to help them understand books. Strong readers read a text and stop and think, "What does this remind me of?" But here, it's the other way around. It's as if Baby L is looking about her body, and thinking, "Hmm... what book does this remind me of?"

Comments From the Peanut Gallery

Baby L is learning more and more words by the minute! Her newest craze is to chime in to conversations, books, songs, anything with her own "comments." Usually "Dooooo!" or "Deeda deeda deeda" or something like that, but she sounds like she's really adding to the conversation! We respond with all due seriousness, "Yes, Baby L., of course. What else would you like to say?" And she responds!

Adorable!

Add that to her fascinating "self conversations" that she has nightly in her crib before she drops off to sleep, and each morning when she awakes. She can be heard listing off the words she knows, cooing, and babbling. It's the best alarm clock ever!

So cute!

She can also be heard "talking" to Indigo, our dog, and Baby L's best bud. "Dee! Dee! Heh heh heh." She smiles, and pats him, or waves to him from across the living room and says as clear as day, "Hi!"

Too bad Indigo can't talk. Maybe with enough reading aloud, modeling conversations, responding to his attempts at conversation...

Our Newest Game: "Where's the..."

"L, where's the monkey?" I asked Baby L, pointing to her toys.

L grinned a big toothy smile and crawled over to her basket of stuffed animals.

"Aaah! Aaah! Aaah!" she shrieked (like a monkey).

"Yes! That's right! That's your monkey!" My heart swelled. My little baby was talking!

"L, where's the owl?" I asked. She turned immediately back to her stuffed animals, all business now.

Five seconds later she found what she was looking for.

"Oooh. Oooh. Ooooh," she hooted, pointing at her favorite stuffed owl--the one her babysitter made her for her birthday a few weeks ago.

"That's right!" I cried, "That's your owl that Ruby made for you! Can you find the other owl?"

L cocked her head at me, as if to say, "Huh?"

"The other owl, you know, the old one?" L dug through the stuffed animals. She cast aside a doll, a teddy bear, and two doggies. Finally, she held the owl she was looking for above her head and hooted, "Oooh! Oooh Oooh!"

"Oh, L, you are the smartest baby in the world!"

Treehuggers

This morning the weather is BEAUTIFUL here in sunny Brooklyn, so Baby L and I went for an extra long walk with Indigo to enjoy the breeze and the sun. And on the way, L made a new discovery--TREES!

Every tree we passed was reason to stop, look up, wave to the branches, touch the bark, feel the leaves, and for Baby L, to say an approving, "Aaaah."

If hadn't been for L's coos, it would have been just a regular walk around the neighborhood, but she reminded me to stop and appreciate the trees. It's so easy to take them for granted, isn't it?

The next time you go for a walk in the park, a stroll down the block, or a hike on the trail, maybe you'll stop and appreciate the trees with your tiny readers. Talk about the height, the shapes of the leaves, the colors, and the names of the trees if you know them. Doing this gives your little ones experience with science, the outdoors, builds vocabulary, and models that trees and the environment are worth appreciating and thinking about.

Like they say, stop and smell the flowers-- and the trees too!

Baby's First CSA

Baby L and I went to our first CSA pick-up of the season today!

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. We belong to the East Williamsburg CSA. You sign up for a share of vegetables, or fruits, or flowers, and then once a week you go and pick up your food. The food comes from a local farm (ours is Hearty Roots Farm), and is grown organically. A quick Google search will probably help you find a CSA near you!

But what does this have to do with reading, you ask?

Well, research shows that background experience and vocabulary are huge factors in children's literacy. Why leave Baby L with Daddy in the apartment when we can all go to the community garden where we pick up our fresh vegetables? Baby L watched and cooed and screeched while I picked out our spinach and broccoli and turnips. I gave her a big red radish to play with, and then we walked around the garden and talked about the flowers that had just been planted. A perfect June experience for Baby!

Car Talk

Question: What does Baby L. like to do best in the car?

Answer: L. loves to look at herself in her carseat mirror. Babies love mirrors! Faces are one of the first categories of information that the brain begins to understand. Did you know there is actually an area of the brain devoted just to understanding faces? Baby L.'s mirror also has a colorful pattern border around the edges of it, and fun silky tags for her to grab onto, for developing her fine motor skills.

Question: When L. starts to get a little grumpy, what do you do about it?

Answer: I sing to her and tell stories! She especially likes songs with silly voices, or storytelling songs like Little Bunny Foo Foo. Literacy researchers agree that immersing children with stories and songs from the littlest age helps foster a love of literature and an understanding of text structure (how stories tend to go). Stories that contain dialogue, rich vocabulary, a problem/solution, and are told with expression and fluency are especially great. But if you can't come up with a good one on the spot, don't worry! Sometimes I just retell our day, step by step. "First we went... then we did..." The sound of my voice calms her down, and she's learning sequencing and all kinds of other important literacy-related skills.

Question: What about poosplosions?

Answer: Definitely pull off the highway, find a decent enough rest area, or at least a fast food restaurant (they always have changing tables) and spend some time cleaning up. I always pack a back-up set of clothes!

Top Ten Things to Do With a Five-Month-Old on a Rainy Day

10. Bounce in the bouncy-seat!

9. Walk around the apartment looking at things.

8. Dance to reggae in the living room.

7. Take naps.

6. Go for airplane rides on mommy's knees.

5. Practice kicking at toys in the play gym.

4. Try eating some rice cereal - but most of it winds up on the bib in the end.

3. Change lots of diapers. And a few outfits.

2. Sing our favorite songs (which include You Are My Flower, Ladybug Picnic, and Little Sack Of Sugar)

1. Read our favorite books, of course!

What are your favorite things to do on a rainy day? Post a comment and share!