Here at Make Way for Books, we work in an organization of imaginative and masterful storytellers. We love finding fun and creative ways to make story come alive for children. Often this includes making the story life-size and interactive. The following ideas are ones we used to give educators props and strategies for making a book come to life for children in their care.
In Dog’s Colorful Day (by Emma Dodd), the character, Dog, has a very messy day as different things (grass, chocolate, juice, etc.) stick to his fur. Throughout the book children count the messy spots that cover Dog.
To bring this story to life, we created:
• A felt board with Dog cutout
• 9 colored felt spots
• A shower loofah to give Dog a bath
To encourage children to interact with the story as well, we also prepared items for the children to use and take home after. We provided:
• Papers with a drawing of Dog (complete, of course, with the black spot on his left ear)
• Sandwich bag containing one small construction paper square for each color that ends up on Dog
• A color copy of the two pages in the book showing all the spots that end up on Dog
And now to make the story come alive…
Before we read, we gave each child the paper with the drawing of Dog and the color squares.
As we read the story, the children put the spots on Dog and counted along with the story. At the end, they wiped them off their paper to give Dog a bath (we used the loofah for our feltboard).
After the story, we gave children the color copy of the spots summary and encouraged them to retell the story at home with their families. We also encouraged the children to make the story their own and cut the squares out into whatever shape they wanted! This is a great way for the children to retell the story themselves!