K-3 storytime featuring bicycles – includes text to text connection to a well-known Aesop fable (“The Tortoise & the Hare”), visual storytelling via a wordless book, books on perseverance (earning the money for a bicycle rather than having it given to you), generosity (worldwide bike donation program) and overcoming disability, as well as some fun songs & flannels.
Stella & Roy by Ashley Roy ---- “Who do you think would be faster big girl on a trike or baby brother on a scooter? – see if this reminds you of another story (text to text connection: The Tortoise and the Hare.)
“This next story (The Girl and the Bicycle by Mark Pett) is also about a girl and her little brother, but it is told entirely in pictures – so you’ll need to use your eyes to figure out what is happening… let’s tell it together…” (Girl helps a neighbor with chores for a whole year to earn enough to buy the bicycle in the window but when she goes to buy it, it is gone! Instead she uses the money she earned to get a tricycle for her brother and then receives the bike she wanted from that neighbor – along with a beautiful hug.)
Sally Jean the Bicycle Queen by Cari Best (Another beautiful story of self-reliance: When Sally Jean outgrows her beloved bicycle, she has to figure out a way to get a larger bike since the family can’t afford to buy one.)
Action song: “Bumping up & down in my little red bicycle… the front wheel’s off and the axle’s broken ..Sally Jean is gonna fix it with her pliers…bumping… the back wheel’s off… Murray’s gonna fix it with his hammer…bumping…”
The Red Bicycle: The Extraordinary Story of One Ordinary Bicycle by Jude Isabella. (told rather than read because the text was too long for our audience) “This is another story of a red bicycle…it is the true story of a boy in Canada who earned money to buy a bike. Later he got too tall to ride it, but instead of giving it to a sister or brother, he donated it to an organization that sends bikes to places around the world where they are needed. His bike went along with 4000+ others on a truck, then a ship, then another truck all the way to Africa…where a girl got it so she could go to school since it was too far to walk, then it became a bicycle ambulance so a nurse could take sick and injured people to hospitals”…. showed pix in the back: a bike being used as a mobile bread shop, and ones carrying huge loads of wood and bananas. Booktalked: My Rows & Piles of Coins by Tolowa Mollel -- another book about a kid in Africa trying to earn enough for a bicycle so he could help his family.
- Bikes for the World, Washington DC USA. www.bikesfortheworld.org, info @bikesfortheworld.org *. The do a lot of their collections around DC, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. BfW Video
"As of 2007-2014 the largest, on an annual basis, of the international recycling organizations and is building a national movement to collect and distribute used bicycles for productive use. Since beginning in 2005, it has delivered more than 90,000 bicycles to programs serving low-income individuals and their communities across the globe. In 2013, Bikes for the World delivered 13,650 bicycles to more than a dozen selected service organizations, focusing on Africa and Central America, but with significant numbers going to the Philippines and community groups in the eastern U.S." More groups: http://www.ibike.org/environment/recycling/recycling-orgs.htm
“Here’s another true story from Africa…what do you notice about the person on the cover?” (He’s riding a bicycle but only has one leg.)
Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson (A disabled boy in Ghana overcomes prejudice and poverty – ultimately going on a 400 mile bike ride to change his country’s attitudes and laws on disabled people.)
Showed pix from Gretchen the Bicycle Dog by Anita Heyman (636.7538 HEY) – (dog from NJ who lost the use of his legs found mobility again through an innovative set of wheels). Some classes: mentioned Mama Zooms by Jan Cowen-Fletcher
“Here’s another interesting set of wheels…”
Flannelboard: Mrs. Armitage on Wheels based on the story by Quentin Blake. Mrs. Armitage continually adds “improvements” to her bicycle (horns, bucket of water for cleaning her hands after fixing the chain, a toolbox, a seat for her trusty dog “Breakspear”, a picnic basket & music box, umbrellas to keep off the rain and finally a sail for extra “oomph” – until the wind sends the whole contraption down a hill and turns it into a pile of junk…but that doesn’t phase Mrs. A. She has a new set of wheels: roller skates!
(some classes): recapped Mrs. A’s adventures to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus.”
“How many of you are riding a two-wheeler without training wheels? Riding a bike for the first time without training wheels can be a challenge…but when you do, it feels like magic!” The Magic Bicycle by Berlie Doherty
Booktalked: The Best Bike Ride Ever by James Proimos – “it is not enough to know how to ride a bike, you need to know how to stop it too!”
Closed with Fast Food by Saxton Freymann
Other fun titles (no time): Bike on Bear by Cynthia Liu, Little Red Riding Hood: A Newfangled Prairie Tale by Lisa Campbell Ernst, Tillie the Terrible Swede: How One Woman, a Sewing Needle and a Bicycle Changed History by Sue Stauffacher (used two years ago for Women’s History Month) Cromwell Dixon’s Sky-Cycle by John Abbot Nez (Picture Nez) – mostly true story of 1907 Boy Wonder inventor.
Want to add a bit of math? Check out these bicycle problems from Bedtime Math. http://bedtimemath.org/?s=bicycles
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