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Using playdough and toy items.

Advantages: Sequencing, recalling of events, verbalising cause-and-effect; children can even recreate their own stories by putting in new items into the playdough tree, i.e. toy items that they can find in play area.

Disadvantages: Requires large amount of playdough for larger surface area, which is easy to dry up.

Adaptations: Use play foam or modelling clay.

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"Great stories happen to those who can tell them." -Ira Glas

We live in a world ruled by stories; stories told on the television, at the movies, in picture books, through photographs on the wall, or on the crayon covered paper drawn by little hands. My favorite stories are the ones told at the dinner table, in the car, or on a walk in the woods. Stories connect us to one another, entertain us, and help us relate to concepts in life.

One of my favorite story tellers is my two year old son. With the most expressive face he spins tall tales that are usually peppered with real life events, and a funny character or two. He seems to have the makings of a future author, but I'm biased of course.

One of our re-occurring favorite stories (in picture book form), and loved by my seven year old as well for its silly plot, is one of Oliver Jeffers' stories, Stuck.

"A tale of trying to solve a problem by throwing things at it." -Oliver Jeffers

I've written about my "crush" for Oliver Jeffers picture books before here. His story telling has a strong hold on us....you could say we're stuck on them!

We were reading and talking about Stuck one day when my older son was home sick from school. We had also cooked up a fresh batch of play dough and pulled out our tree blocks. It struck me later on that afternoon that we had an opportunity for story telling right in front of us.

I smashed some of the play dough down so there was ample surface area for our stories, and laid a tree block next to it so it had the appearance of a tree. Then I grabbed a container and filled it with small random objects and toys...the best kind of props for story telling.

I simply asked my boys to tell me a story with the objects in front of them. My seven year old eagerly began to work, and the two year old followed his lead.

It did not take very long for the room to be filled with tales of..."I threw my fish into the tree because I wanted to see if it was a flying fish, then I went back in time in my time machine to get a dinosaur to throw into the tree to knock it down, it was still stuck, so I threw...."
My younger son told simpler versions,"I throw Lego to knock train down. I throw car to knock Lego down."

They told, and they re-told, and kept on telling. It was a great sequencing and recall activity. They changed the objects and shared their own stories over and over... it was sticking with them.

What favorite story telling methods seem to stick with your kids? Please share your stories below!

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"Great stories happen to those who can tell them." -Ira Glas We live in a world ruled by stories; stories told on the television, at the movies, in picture books, through photographs on the wall, or on the crayon covered paper drawn by little hands.

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Worksheet that includes drawing and answering questions.

Advantages: Recalling of events from storyline, identifying problem and giving possible solutions.

Disadvantages: Boring

Adaptations: Attempt the worksheet after going through hands-on activities such as #1 or #3

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When you have a book that can make a whole group of five and six year olds belly laugh, you know you have a gem.

That was our literacy block today when we were reading "The Incredible Book Eating Boy" and "Stuck". The second story got even more laughs because of how outrageous it is. You can watch Oliver Jeffers read this story on YouTube. It resonates even more if you read it and then listen to him read it in his Irish accent.

We all know how wonderful Dr. Seuss, Eric Carle, and Jan Brett are....but I really was needing a little more this year. Not that I didn't read all of these stories to my kinders this year. I knew I needed a little more depth, richer vocabulary, and various illustrating styles to show my kids. I was feeling a little robotic.

Not only can you watch this story on YouTube if you do not own it, but you can watch Oliver Jeffers discuss how he writes his book. My favorite part of this is that he holds up a pencil and a notebook and shows them that all of his ideas start right there. I could have kissed him. Except that he looks like the man from "Caps for Sale"...

Regardless, perfect way to launch this author study.

I found Oliver Jeffers while wandering through different bookstores last summer in London. I know that some of his books have made it over to the states, but they haven't reached the popularity level that they have in Europe. His books need to be in the hands of young readers.

Today, we started with two of my favorites that I mentioned before. Tomorrow, we are going to be reading about The Hueys. {Fun side note, the book I got in London is titles "The New Jumper" and if you buy it here you will get "The New Sweater"}There are so many ways to incorporate so many beneficial language skills and deep thinking, I can't even begin to list the ways. Here are all the yummy books we are reading this week.

Here are some pictures from our response activity today after we read "Stuck".

You can do this activity with your students even if you don't have the book. You have the link to watch the story and now you have an activity to do with it.

Then, you will probably turn in to an Oliver Jeffers fanatic and go on an Amazon and buy an obsene amount of books.

Ahem, I don't know anyone who has done that...

I feel like a new breath of literacy life has been blown in to my classroom this week. I know we only have one full week left, but I am not counting down the days right now. I am squeezing in as many good stories as I can.

Really, the perfect way to end the year.

If you turn in to an Amazon Oliver Jeffers shopping machine and need more activites, you can find it in my Oliver Jeffers Author Study Unit.

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Breathe Life in to Literacy with Oliver Jeffers

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When you have a book that can make a whole group of five and six year olds belly laugh, you know you have a gem. That was our literacy block today when we were reading "The Incredible Book Eating Boy" and "Stuck". The second story got even more laughs because of how outrageous it is.

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Worksheet that includes cutting, pasting, colouring.

Advantage: Recalling of events from storyline, allows children to be creative when drawing the tree and boy, and colouring the objects.

Disadvantage: Size of A4 worksheet is not large enough to accommodate all items.

Adaptations: Use A3 size for worksheet.

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Using felt to make the tree, and velcro to paste the items onto the tree.

Advantages: Makes use of play environment, sequencing, recalling of events from storyline, naming and describing objects.

Disadvantages: The objects may not vary in their relative weight according to their actual weight in real life.

Adaptations: Make certain items heavier by putting in beans or rice inside the bag (e.g. house, ship), and put less beans or rice in those items that are not as heavy in real like (e.g. kite, shoe).

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Using paper and glue, children draws out the items, colours and cut them and pastes them on the big tree.

Advantage: Naming objects, recalling of events from storyline, allows children to be creative when drawing the items from the book.

Disadvantage: Weight of the items cannot be varied (i.e. which item is heavier in real life).

Adaptations: After drawing, colouring and cutting out the individual items, it can be pasted on a cardboard box made up of different weights. Paste the heavier items (e.g. car, whale) on the cardboard boxes with heavier weights.

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"Stuck" written by Oliver Jeffers activity.

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Using laminating sheets, printed pictures, magnets and a magnetic board.

Advantage: Teach sequencing, naming objects, describing objects, listening to one-step directions.

Disadvantages: Pictures of the items does not evidently tell the relative weight or size of each item (e.g. which is heavier or bigger).

Adaptations: Resize the printed pictures according to their actual relative size. Add weight by attaching different weights of magnet to the items.

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For this week's Flannel Friday I (with the help of Seth) made a version of the book Stuck by Oliver Jeffers. It isn't quite a flannel though, after talking with Seth a bit we decided it would be much easier to make into a magnetic board instead. A flannel would be awesome, but would take so much time, there are tons of things that get stuck in the tree! So with the help of Microsoft clip art, handy magnetic sheets, a laminator, and a glue gun, here is the finished product:

Check out his awesome blue Chucks! That's my favorite part 🙂

Here is the clip art: Stuck Clip art

While making it I had an even better idea, what if the kids could be included in the story? Before I begin reading I will pass out an item to each child and explain to them that they have to pay extra special attention and when the item is ready to be thrown into the tree they can come up and put it on the board themselves. There are over 20 items so each child will definitely have one since my storytimes are limited to a certain number of kids. The only other story I've been able to really include them in was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and they absolutely LOVED coming up to put a letter on the tree. I can't count how many times a piece of felt has accidentally fallen to the ground and a sea of preschoolers come rushing to pick it up for me. There's something fascinating to them about it.

I can't wait to see how it goes in a few weeks. I will let you all know!

Here's a simple and easy to make flannel for St. Patrick's Day!

Five green shamrocks growing outdoors, somebody picked one and that left 4.

Four green shamrocks green as they can be, somebody picked one and that left 3.

Three green shamrocks playing peek-a-boo, somebody picked one and that left 2.

Two green shamrocks nodding in the sun, somebody picked one and that left 1.

One green shamrock ready for some St. Patrick's Day fun, somebody picked it and that left none!

I'm so happy to finally be making flannel boards again! I'm not currently doing storytime but on Friday I'm helping my co-worker with one. It's going to be Valentine's Day themed, of course, so I suggested we read Mama Loves You By Caroline Stutson. I love using this book for Valentine's Day but you could even use it for mom or family themes. If you haven't read it, you must! It's a cute rhyming story about different animals and the kids guess what's going to be on the page. It begins with, I am yours, you are mine, mama loves you...Porcupine! And so on. It's a very tiny book, so it was the perfect candidate for a flannel story. All I did was cut out felt hearts and print pictures of the animals and glue them on one side. Then, as we read the story we will flip them over to reveal each animal. Simple but cute!

I love my new camera, now I just need to practice taking pictures that aren't crooked 😛

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For this week's Flannel Friday I (with the help of Seth) made a version of the book Stuck by Oliver Jeffers. It isn't quite a flannel though, after talking with Seth a bit we decided it would be much easier to make into a magnetic board instead.