A storytime for K-2nd grade celebrating the season
emphasizing empathy & compassion
Participatory Storytelling/Props: The Little Red House with No Doors & No Windows, a Chimney On Top & a Star in the Middle (Tip: instantly turn flannel pieces into hanging signs for kids to wear using plastic paper protector sleeves with stiff paper inserts & yarn ribbon to hang around each child's neck, act out the wind blowing the trees and the “plop” of an apple falling in the farmer’s backyard. Prop: real apple & knife to slice horizontally.)Book: One Green Apple by Eve Bunting --This beautiful (and beautifully illustrated) story emphasizes understanding and compassion as Farah, a new student from an unnamed country, goes with her class on a field trip to an apple orchard (defined) and finds that though she is different and doesn’t know the language, she can be accepted and will find friends here.
Participatory Storytelling/Props: Big Pumpkin – from the book by Erica Silverman -- In this variant on the folktale, “The Great Big Enormous Turnip,” the witch, ghost, skeleton, and vampire are unable to pull up the pumpkin until a tiny bat ignores their derisive laughter and suggests they all work together. I sing/chant this to a tune from an old Scholastic recording – feel free to contact me if you want to learn the tune.
Book: Pumpkins: A Story for a Field by Mary Lyn Ray – A splendid modern environmental myth in which a man, saddened by the thought that the field across from his house is about to be sold, sells everything he has, buys seeds, grows pumpkins, and then sends them all around the world (by planes, trucks, ships, and even flying carpets) to get enough money to buy the field and save it.
Participatory Storytelling/Props: The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything based on the story by Linda Williams (1st grade only, Kdg no time) props for children to use - shoes, pants, shirt, hat, gloves, pumpkin head, scarecrow)
Booktalked:
Non-Fiction Book: Rotten Pumpkin: A Rotten Tale in 15 Voices* – 577.16 SCHWARTZ – “UnCommon Core” at its best! -- Told in the first person by the pumpkin, mouse, squirrel, slug, fly, black rot, bread mold, sow bug, Penicillium, earthworm, yeast cell, slime mold, soil, and seed, this is science “on the hoof.” Wonderful writing & delightfully yucky photographs complete this unforgettable tour through the life cycle of a pumpkin that kids will find completely enGROSSing! (Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell is a less-detailed version for a younger crowd. Sophie’s Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller makes a great fictional companion story.)
Book (K-2): Bear’s Bargain – Frank Asch (also published as Moonbear’s Bargain) Bear wants to fly & Little Bird wishes he was big -- clever problem solving).
See more ideas at:
https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Apples
https://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search/label/Pumpkins
Bedm K-1 11/1/2024
