Blue-footed boobies and whingdingdillies

If you are looking for a Read-Aloud theme that is light and fun, try this one about odd and unusual animals. This theme provides an easy way to include both nonfiction and fiction selections, as well as real and imaginary animals.

One volunteer's recent trip to the Galapagos Islands provided inspiration for a team from Next Steps (New Hope Housing). Some of the animals of the Galapagos Islands exist nowhere else on earth, and some have evolved to have highly unusual features. The kids loved seeing this volunteer's photos of animals she had seen and could tell stories about -- blue-footed boobies, marine iguanas and giant tortoises. Connecting the content with real-life experience helps kids understand the information and builds excitement.

If no one on your team has taken a trip to the Galapagos Islands, the library is a great source of books on the animals of the Galapagos; an internet search on "animals of the Galapagos Islands" will also yield wonderful photos.

Or, drop the Islands angle altogether and introduce the kids to your favorite quirky animals:  platypus, emus, angler fish, sloths or geckos that can regrow their tails. The animals section of the library will give you lots of options!  



You'll find fiction treatments of silly animals just as much fun.  

William Wegman's famous Weimaraners dressed as humans are a great example of visual humor that kids can appreciate. In this video, he introduces his new book, Flo & Wendell.  

Bill Peet and Dr. Seuss are authors famed for their imaginary animals. Peet, an animator for Walt Disney, develops a story around his imaginary animals.  Seuss' animals are more likely to appear as a name and a drawing in a larger narrative.   

Book list

Flo & Wendell by William Wegman

If I Ran the Zoo and other books by Dr. Seuss

Cyrus the Unsinkable Sea Serpent, The Whingdingdilly and other books by Bill Peet
But Not the Hippopotamus by Sandra Boynton

Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French

The Cow That Went Oink by Bernard Most
Animal Tails by Beth Fielding

Never Smile At a Monkey by Steve Jenkins
Creature Features by Steve Jenkins
How to Clean a Hippopotamus by Steve Jenkins

In the activity portion of the Read-Aloud, the team at Next Steps worked with the kids to make silly animal masks from paper plates. When the children were told that they were free to make the masks as crazy as they wanted, they got very creative. The volunteers cut the centers out of the plates and stapled tongue depressors (handles) ahead of time. At the Read-Aloud, the kids used colored foam, paper, cotton balls and cotton-tipped swabs to make their imaginary animal masks. It was loads of fun!

To add some movement, play silly animal "Simon Says." "Simon says waddle like a penguin. Simon says show your feet like a blue-footed boobie. Puff up like a puffer fish!" 

For a song, make up a mixed-up version of "Old MacDonald" based on the mix-ups in the book, The Cow That Went Oink. Together with the kids, make up funny combinations of animals and sounds, and then sing your song.

Don't forget to congratulate everyone on their imagination and silliness!

 To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Read Across America

Read Across America Day 2014 is right around the corner! Grab your favorite Seuss tale and get set for some ridiculous, rhyming fun!

Read Across America, normally celebrated on March 2 in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday, is a reading awareness program that calls for every child in every community around the country to celebrate reading. This year, Read Across America Day is Monday, March 3, 2014.

Many of Dr. Seuss' books are text heavy, so be sure to pick a book that will keep your crowd engaged until the end. Take advantage of Dr. Seuss' rollicking, zany style when reading aloud: whisper and shout, speed up and slow down and emphasize rhyme and rhythm.

If your audience ranges from three to eight years old, try these Seuss books:

Green Eggs and Ham
Trying something new can be a little scary. Ask the kids what they think makes Sam-I-Am change his mind. For a snack, green hard-boiled eggs are always a winner!

If I Ran the Zoo 
What weird animals can the kids come up with? Encourage them draw pictures, make up names and introduce their animal creation to everyone else.

Fox in Socks 
Be sure to practice reading this collection of rhymes and tongue twisters before your Read-Aloud. As you are reading, get the kids into the act by encouraging them to say the rhymes and tongue twisters with you. This one is especially fun:

"When a fox is in the bottle where the tweetle beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle, THIS is what they call...a tweetle beetle noodle poodle bottled paddled muddled duddled fuddled wuddled fox in socks, sir!"

If THAT won't get them to laugh, then NOTHING will!

If the group at your Read-Aloud trends older (say eight years old and up) try learning about the man who was Dr. Seuss. Read The Boy on Fairfield Street to see how Theodor Geisel became Dr. Seuss. 

For the more advanced readers in your group, you could try reading one of Seuss' more complex books like The Lorax or The Sneetches. After reading, discuss the undertones of social change in the stories.

The Seussville website's Read Across America page has fun activities and printable props to help you plan your event. If you want more interactive activities, try these carnival-style Seuss games from the obSEUSSed blog. Check out these Seuss-related blog posts on Belle of the Book for even more ideas.

The fact that Read Across America Day is a national effort to celebrate reading may appeal to kids--so make sure they know about it, and know that they're part of something BIG. 


To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Celebrate Boys!

It's a tradition in Japan to fly carp banners representing the boys in your home leading up to May 5th, Boy's Day. The day commemorates a Japanese hero, Kintaro, who was said to be unusually strong as a child. (Think Paul Bunyon or John Henry.) 

Why not take this occasion to celebrate boys at your Read-Aloud? Boys often get short shrift when it comes to reading. There is less social support for boys than girls to read, and statistics show that boys are often more reluctant than girls to read and are more frequently diagnosed with reading disabilities.

Featuring books about boys, real or imaginary, at your Read-Aloud is fun and easy. And it gives boys a chance to find themselves in a book. 

Choose biographies of boys who grew up to be famous and encourage kids to imagine what they will do when they grow up.

• The Boy on Fairfield Street: How Ted Geisel Grew Up to Become Dr. Seuss by Kathleen Krull
• The Herd Boy, about Nelson Mandela, by Niki Daly
• Honda: The Boy Who Dreamed of Cars, by Mark Weston
• Odd Boy Out:  Young Albert Einstein by Don Brown
• Teddie:  The Story of Young Teddy Roosevelt by Don Brown
• Young Thomas Edison by Michael Dooling

Or, go the imaginary route.  Read some adventures or talk about what it's like to be a son, a brother and a boy.

• The Amazing Adventures of Bumblebee Boy by David Soman and Jacky Davis
• Be Boy Buzz by Bell Hooks
• The Boy in the Garden by Allen Say
• Brothers of the Knight by Debbie Allen
• Edwardo, the Horriblest Boy in the World by John Burningham
• Harvey Moon, Museum Boy by Pat Cummings
• I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child
• What Little Boys are Made Of by Robert Neubecker

Don't forget some classic boy stories!  Is being a boy now different from being a boy 15 or more years ago when these stories were published? 

• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
• Crow Boy by Taro Yashima
• Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
• Jack and the Beanstalk by Steven Kellogg
• No, David! by David Shannon
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

And for the older kids, how about our favorite boy characters like Harry Potter, Peter Pan, Greg (from Diary of a Wimpy Kid), Percy Jackson or Horrible Harry?  Try reading selections from the books and have the kids vote for the coolest character.  Encourage the kids to talk about what him a great character.

Reading is more fun when you can identify with the characters in the story.  Every so often it's a good idea to shine the spotlight on boys in books and encourage the forgotten reader.




To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Parts of a Book: The Importance of Book Mechanics

While Read-Alouds are about getting kids excited for the stories inside books and giving them information on all their favorite subjects, there's another part that we talk about less frequently: helping kids learn about books in general.

Children who grow up in families where books aren't an integral part of daily life may not be as familiar with the parts of a book as kids who use books every day. Helping kids at Read-Alouds get comfortable with the way books are organized is just as important as inspiring them to read on their own or teaching them how to sound out words. It's part of the mechanics of reading. 

In Read-Alouds, take time to emphasize the parts of a book.

How to hold a book
If you're not too familiar with books, you might not know how to hold one--it's important to be gentle and not pull too hard on the pages or bend the spine. This you can show by example, and when kids are picking out books to take home, gently correct a child who is being too rough with it. Hold the book, smooth the cover, and say, "This looks like a great book! What a beautiful cover. Remember to treat it nicely." Observers will learn from your example.

The cover and title page
When you first bring out a story, take a minute to show the cover to the audience. Ask what they can guess about the story from the front of the book. Who will the characters be? What does the title tell us? Point out where the author's name is and read it out loud. Despite the old saying about not judging a book by its cover, learning to discern what a book is about from its cover is an important skill.

What can we take from the cover of Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories? Well, we know it's by Dr. Seuss. Ask your audience what they know from experience about Dr. Seuss books. (There will probably be silly words and rhymes.) Point out the picture of the turtles all stacked up--take a minute to talk about what that is all about!

Turn to the title page--note how the title and author's names are printed again. This is true of every book!

Table of contents and chapter list

When you have a reader who is just moving up to longer books--or if you're going to read part of one to a group--take a minute to show off the table of contents or the chapter list. Some nonfiction books will have a table of contents that shows where different sections begin and end. Show the kids how to find which part you want to read, and the corresponding page number. 

Explain how not every book has to be read from the first page to the last page--the table of contents lets you skip around to what you want to read. If it's a nonfiction book and you're working one-on-one with a child, let him look through the table of contents and pick which section he wants you to read. 

Index

The first page of Shel Silverstein's Everything On It index.

Like the table of contents, knowing how to use an index is an important reading skill. Fast-forward a few years and the kids you're reading to will be asked to do a research project in school. The point of using an index is to give the kids practice finding relevant information inside books. You can give your readers a head start by helping them understand the concept of an index. It sounds like such a little thing, but the difference between knowing what an index is and how it's used and not knowing will make a big difference!

Note to your readers that the index is located at the end of the book, whereas the table of contents is at the front, and that the index works alphabetically (talk for a minute about what that means) while the table of contents lists things in the order they appear in the book.

Understanding how a book works is just as important as knowing how to read one. Don't devote an entire Read-Aloud to talking about how indexes work or what information is available on the title page--that's what school is for, and Read-Alouds are primarily about having fun with reading. But, you can integrate this kind of important information about book mechanics into every Read-Aloud you do. Even though it may not seem like it, doing so can help give readers a big advantage when it's time to use books in the rest of their lives. 

Post by The Reading Connection intern Anna McCormally.


To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.

Read Across America: Celebrating Dr. Seuss

The big day is coming right up--Read Across America Day 2012 is right around the corner!

Read Across America, celebrated on March 2 in honor of Dr.Seuss' birthday, is a reading awareness program that calls for every child in every community around the country to celebrate reading.

The theme of Read Across America this year is "green" in honor of the film adaption of The Lorax, which will open on March 2 as well.

Since TRC's Read-Alouds take place four nights a week, we will be celebrating Read Across America Week during the week of February 27. Take the opportunity to do a nature themed Read-Aloud:


The Lorax, by beloved children's author Dr. Seuss, tells the story of the Lorax, who "speaks for the trees" in this story that talks about deforestation and environmental degradation in language and pictures that anyone can understand. Because The Lorax is one of Dr. Seuss' longer books--and because it is fairly text heavy--try clipping pages together if there are sections you feel you can skip over. You can read just a few pages, or read only parts of pages--be creative and do whatever you need to do. 

Tell Me, Tree: All about Trees for Kids by Gail Gibbons is a nonfiction book with colorful pictures that introduces young readers to the parts of trees and how they fit in nature. It even features a section about how to make your own tree identification book and is perfect for kids who are eager to learn. Making tree identification books and going outside to see what kinds of trees are nearby are great activities to go along with this story.

The Listening Walk, by Paul Showers, tells the story of a father and daughter who go on a walk. As they go through the neighborhood with their dog, Major, they see what they can hear in nature--and it turns out they can hear a lot! Go on a short listening walk on your own and see what you and your readers can hear.

Most of Dr. Seuss' books are quite text heavy, so to celebrate Read Across America and Dr. Seuss with a younger audience that may not be ready for The Lorax, try these other Seuss books:

Green Eggs and Ham 
For a snack, green hard-boiled eggs are always a winner!

If I Ran the Zoo 
What weird animals can the kids come up with? Have them draw pictures, make up names and introduce their animal creation to everyone else.

Fox in Socks 
Take advantage of all that Dr. Seuss has given us in his stories: whisper and shout, speed up and slow down, have the kids try saying the rhymes and tongue twisters: 

"When a fox is in the bottle where the tweetle beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle, THIS is what they call...a tweetle beetle noodle poodle bottled paddled muddled duddled fuddled wuddled fox in socks, sir!"

If THAT won't get them to laugh, then NOTHING will!

The fact that Read Across America Day is a national effort to celebrate reading may appeal to kids--so make sure they know about it, and know that they're part of something special. For ideas for fun activities, including the Reader's Oath, go to the National Education Association website.  If those ideas aren't enough for you, check out this blog entry for more.

Post by The Reading Connection intern Anna McCormally.


To receive credit for this online training, please fill out the form here.