We like to move it, move it!

Kids need to MOVE! It doesn't matter whether they've been snowed in or sitting all day at school. Including movement in every Read-Aloud gets blood circulating, bringing oxygen to the brain and helping kids stay engaged. Movement also makes many kids more comfortable. And it’s fun! 

Here is a collection of our favorite movement ideas from previous blog posts, plus a couple of new ideas.

Bubble Wrap Dance Party

That's right: put bubble wrap on the floor, turn on some music and dance! TRC has lots of bubble wrap on hand at the office for you to use at your next Read-Aloud. 

Read some books about music, dancing or noise and get dancing! The kids will love the satisfying snap the bubble wrap makes at they cut the rug.



Yoga

Some days, you might be looking for a more serene option than a bubble popping dance party. Why not try yoga? Have the kids take five or six deep breaths, stretching their hands high on the inhale and rounding their hands back to "heart center" during the exhale. That kind of movement works wonders in calming down a group of kids. 

For more kid-friendly yoga moves, here are some poses that elicit group movement and concentration: 
• Use these yoga warm-ups to imitate things kids are familiar with. such as a tree and a pea.  
• Finish with a seated position so kids are ready to listen to a story right after finishing.

For more detailed instructions on how to incorporate yoga in your Read-Aloud, check out this blog post or TRC's Volunteer Central (search for "yoga" under Read-Aloud themes).


Energizers

One of our favorite sources of movement activities is a book entitled Energizers!  88 Quick Movement Activities that Refresh and Refocus by Susan Lattanzi Roser. Many of these activities have accompanying videos online so you can see how they work in action. 


To see some of our Energizer favorites, including "Tootie-Tah," "Go Bananas!" or "Dum Dum Dah Dah," check out this blog post.

Active Themes


Another way to get the kids moving is to choose a Read-Aloud theme that is active by its very nature. Try a Read-Aloud about soccer, running, dance or ninjas. Even a Read-Aloud about cooking or painting gets hands and brains working. Or look for books related to your theme that encourage movement and get the kids moving to them while you read. 





Move at every Read-Aloud

Include movement in any Read-Aloud, regardless of theme, with the following:  

• Encouraging kids to act out the stories read 
• Playing charades based on words or characters from the books you’ve read or
• Singing theme-related songs with movements or finger movements to help the little ones get the wiggles out. 

Incorporating movement into your Read-Aloud in any way will improve the experience for the kids. It will meet their physical needs, allowing them to enjoy listening to stories, and demonstrate to them that reading doesn't always have to be a sedentary activity.

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

Activities for multi-age Read-Alouds

When trying to keep kids of a variety of ages engaged at your Read-Aloud, the books you choose play a major role, but so do the activities you include. Planning activities that meet the developmental needs of all the kids at your Read-Aloud, while not requiring extra work, can make all the difference. 

Here are some ideas for activities to intrigue and delight all the kids at your Read-Aloud.

Open-ended crafts

If you like to do crafts with the kids at your Read-Aloud, plan simple open-ended ones that allow each kid to create her own product that's as simple or as complex as she wishes.

For example, a Read-Aloud about butterflies could include coffee filter butterflies. Each child gets a coffee filter and a pipe cleaner to make the butterfly. Using markers, the child can decorate the filter any way she likes. 

The kids can make dinosaurs, robots or anything else with pipe cleaners, clay or found objects like recyclables or rocks and sticks. Try a Google search for your theme and the materials you'd like to use: "found object robot craft for kids" for instructions.

Tracing the outline of his body on a big piece of paper and then handing over the markers is a perfect springboard for kids to create their own drawing for a Read-Aloud about autobiographies, the human body, super heroes, Halloween costumes or winter (and getting dressed to go outside). It can also become a self-portrait. 

The humble toilet paper tube is an excellent vehicle for open-ended crafts. A blog post from January 2015 chronicles different Read-Alouds that use toilet paper or paper towel tubes for crafts and activities that delight young and old. 

Get moving!

While little kids may need, developmentally, to move around more than bigger kids, incorporating movement in your Read-Aloud will be popular with kids of all ages. Keep in mind that they’ve probably been sitting still all day at school and would welcome the opportunity to move around.

Include movement in any Read-Aloud, regardless of theme, by encouraging kids to act out the stories being read or playing charades based on words or characters from the books you’ve read. Singing theme-related songs with movements or finger plays help the little ones get the wiggles out. Including an energizer or two during your session can help channel energy and engage kids who learn best by moving. Stretching or yoga at the beginning or during a Read-Aloud can relax and center the kids.

Another way to get the kids moving is to choose a Read-Aloud theme that is, by its very nature, active. Try a Read-Aloud about soccer, running, dance, teamwork or ninjas. Even a Read-Aloud about cooking or painting get hands and brains working. 

Appeal to the senses

Everyone, regardless of age, experiences the world through her senses. When you include sensory experiences in your Read-Aloud, you create the opportunity for each kid to have a concrete, physical encounter with the theme. As you are planning your Read-Aloud, think about ways you can include a sensory experience. Here are some examples.

A rain forest Read-Aloud could include a tray of common rain forest food products for kids to see and smell.

A beach Read-Aloud could have sand, shells, beach towels and balls for the kids to see and touch, seaweed to taste and sunscreen to smell.

A cooking or baking Read-Aloud could have ingredients for kids to see, smell and touch, cooking tools to see and touch and cooked or baked items for tasting. 

Real-world experiences

Reading comprehension correlates strongly to background knowledge. Kids build background knowledge by having experiences that build vocabulary and understanding of new ideas and situations. Yet, many at-risk kids lack opportunities to experience the wide variety of opportunities that are common for their more affluent peers. Playing an instrument or going to the beach may be experiences TRC kids have never had.

Providing real-world experiences at your Read-Aloud allows kids to a learn about a new concept in an authentic, hands-on way. Here are three examples of Read-Alouds where volunteers re-created real-world experiences.

Camping: set up a tent and bring in backpacks, flashlights and hiking boots. Make s’mores and shadow puppets.

Running and races: set up a short course outside, make bib numbers for every kid, warm up and then go for a run. The kids can decorate medals at the end.

Air travel: set up chairs or carpet squares like a plane, distribute boarding passes, go through security, find seats and hear the safety briefing (TRC promises). Then provide in-flight entertainment (read aloud) and refreshments, exit plane and retrieve bag (choose a book).

TRC has books and materials for each of these real-world Read-Alouds that you can use.

Activities to use with good multi-age books

Finally, here are some flexible activities that work well with the kinds of books -- wordless and interactive books, poetry, and fairy and folk tales -- that we explored in our last blog post about multi-age Read-Alouds.

Wordless books naturally lead into playing charades, encouraging the kids to take turns telling what is happening in the pictures or making flip books or pictures.

To extend an interactive book you could use a touch bag for kids to experience different textures, make lift-the-flap books, encourage the kids to act out the stories or choose their course in a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Poetry lends itself to open-ended activities that work in multi-age groups.

• Write short, simple poems together, such as acrostic poems, limericks or haiku.
• Play rhyming games.
• Teach little kids rhyming songs and finger plays.
• For older kids, adapt poems or songs they know with new words.

Activities that work well with fairy and folk tales include the following:

• Read different versions of the same fairy or folk tale and have the kids vote on their favorite.
• After reading some fairy or folk tales, have the kids break into groups and act them out.
• Older kids could make their own fractured fairy tales or folk tales (new, zany versions that are adapted from the original).
• Many of the stories are repetitive or depend on sequence for their structure. Encourage the kids to make or use sequence cards you provide to retell the story. Search online for free sequence cards for the story of your choice or encourage kids to draw their own.

For more information, here are links to related blog posts and Reading Road Maps:

Movement and Energizers
More movement for more focus 7/15/2013
Moved by books 4/20/2015
Get moving! 5/29/2012
Get up and dance 2/3/2014
Use yoga to help kids focus at Read-Alouds 11/25/2013

Crafts
In praise of a toilet paper tube 1/12/2015
Focus on the process, not the product 2/11/2013
Encouraging creativity 5/20/2013
Kids in charge 5/21/2012

Reading Road Maps
Summer Read-Aloud outlines 6/23/2014 (cooking, wordless books, rain forests, soccer, running and racing)

Read-Aloud planning advice from the experts – TRC volunteers 10/18/2011 (teamwork, cooking, soccer, wordless books, world records)

Air travel

When you include flexible activities that encourage creativity, incorporate movement, appeal to the senses or relate to real-world experiences, you meet the developmental needs of all the kids at your Read-Aloud and allow them to experience how fun reading can be.

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

Ninjas! Read-Aloud

Our team took a stealth approach to our last Read-Aloud with a theme of "Ninjas!" We gathered as a large group and began with the non-fiction book, "You Wouldn't Want to Be a Ninja!" to learn exactly what a ninja is and where the name comes from.  

To set the stage, we also read a bit about the historical role of ninjas in 16th century Japan. We moved on to some picture books, including: 

• Wink, the Ninja Who Wanted to be Noticed by J. C. Phillipps 
• Wink, the Ninja Who Wanted to Nap by J. C. Phillipps 
• Nighttime Ninja by Barbara DaCosta
• Ninja Cowboy Bear Presents the Way of the Ninja by David Bruins and Hilary Leung
• The Boy Who Cried Ninja by Alex Latimer

We also had a large selection of older reader books that were thematically appropriate (Stone Rabbit, Choose Your Own Adventure, etc.). However, most were graphic novels and did not lend themselves well to being read aloud in a group setting, and the kids opted to stay together this night as our group was smaller than usual.

After reading we moved to the tables to create ninja headbands. We took 3" x 44" strips of muslin fabric and used fabric markers to write our ninja names using a ninja alphabet one volunteer found online.  

While we worked the kids were able to taste a variety of Japanese snacks including green tea drinks, ginger cookies, rice cracker snack mix, and plain and wasabi dried seaweed.  

Kids who finished their headbands quickly moved back to the rug to play Sensei Says (like Simon Says with ninja moves). We said things like "Master Tsutsu [from one of the books we read] says put your hands at your heart and bow," or "Master Tsutsu says kick your leg once."

We had planned ahead and added a few ninja books to the book selection choices and those were well received during the give-away portion of the evening.



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