Preschool Sticker Stories

A month ago, I purchased a bunch of sticker books at A.C. Moore. I wasn't really sure what my plan for them was, but they were cute and cheap.

One afternoon I needed to get a rambunctious group of boys to settle down and called them to the table. I grabbed my set of "Big Rig" truck stickers. I told them I was going to give them each a truck sticker, but first they had to draw a road to put their truck on. As the boys added to their pictures, I gave them more stickers: traffic cones, signs, and more trucks. They were all working so hard on their pictures, but I quickly realized that more importantly they were storytelling.  I also asked them what the weather was for their trucks. Some added suns and some added storms. Several of them had elaborate stories about their trucks having to go through the cones and the storm and more.

I was pretty proud to see the rich language that came from that impromptu activity.

Several weeks later I decided to try it again, but this time I wanted to record their stories. I chose pirate stickers this time. What I love the most about these stickers is that they had both girl and boy pirates (as it should be).  I worked with them in a similar way. As they added to their picture I would hand them another sticker. Here's a monkey, so now you might need to draw a tree.  Here's a whale can you draw some waves for him. 

This was a younger group (ages 2.5 to 3.5) and their "maps" didn't look like much, 

but they had quite the stories to tell. 

In January, we are working on building language and storytelling and 

I am excited to see what other stories they come up with during this month.

The monkey is heading to the water and the ship is steering. The captain is driving the ship.
The whale is doing a backflip and a fo-fish and diving.
The pirate is a diver. And the telescope is looking for the treasure.
The monkey is heading to the jungle.  

The pirate is going to the treasure. And the pirate is going in the boat.
The pirate is going to the jungle. 

He is supposed to go to the ship and he's going to the deep deep dark in the woods.
In the jungle. He's going to the boat with his steering wheel.

The pirate can't find the treasure. That stops the pirate from danger. These things are water that gets the fire.
The fire is getting closer to the pirate. But it's not getting closer to the parrot.
So the parrot is following the way to the treasure. 

The monkey was driving the boat and then he sinked in the boat. Then he realized
the pirate came and saved him. And then a crocodile ate them. The monkey found
the treasure and the man came looking for him but the alligator ate him too quick.
And then he went to bed and had a dream about it.

The pirate is looking for treasure and a parrot. And the whale is looking for an elephant seal.
She misses her little pet seal. She's looking for that trap so she can
recognize it. 

Making Choices: Where are you playing?

Every year is different at Inch By Inch. Every group of children arrives with their own experiences and interests. Every day, week, month and year is a changing process.

This year's group currently needs to touch and hold. 

They need things to be very concrete. 

Several months ago I made "name rocks" for each of them. The picture below shows our wooden tray of rocks. I flipped all the rocks over so the children's names would be protected. Some of the rocks have the first letter on the back for the children who needed a little extra help recognizing their names.

At first the rocks were simply available around the classroom. They could look at them. Carry them around. Find their friends' names. We have been amazed by how many of the children recognize their friends' names now. They will find somebody else's rock and deliver it to their friend. 

Two weeks ago we started putting the rocks around the "Gathering Rug" before storytime. They could find their rock and sit in the seat that we placed it in.  The purpose was to help with name recognition, but also to place certain children next to each other.  The results were great. The children also had something to hold in their hands, which kept their hands busy while they listened to the story.

The following week the rocks were an inspiration for a new process in the classroom. We have been noticing a lot of the children have been having difficulty engaging in play. They seemed to check out one area and then move to the next without actually touching or doing anything. Just wandering.

We decided to use the rocks as a way for the children to be more aware and thoughtful about their play choices within the classroom. 

Each area now has a matching sign and bowl. A different color and name for each area. The children are still free to play where the would like, but are asked to bring their rock with them and "sign in" to the new area. 

Small World Area

If we have noticed that a child is wandering, we may have a conversation like this...

Teacher: "______, where is your rock?"

Child: "Oh! Over there."

Teacher: "Would you like to move your rock?"

If yes, they would be asked to clean up a couple items and then move their rock.

If no, they would then return to their previous area. 

The children are very excited about their rocks. They are very excited about the new color coordinated circle signs and bowls that have appeared around the classroom. So far there has been a lot of success with this new approach. The ultimate goal is for the children to be aware of their actions and movement through the classroom.  The children really seem to be enjoying it and are excited. Some of the children seem to be staying in areas much longer. Other seem to be using the passport approach and they make sure they get to each area during playtime. 

They all seem to be PLAYING more. 

Our major areas:

Gathering Rug

Quiet Reading Area

Art Table

Small World

Imagination Station (our newly combined dress up and block area)

Sensory Table

Octagon Table (usually lego or trains)

Quiet Reading Area

Imagination Station

Little Voices: Familiar Words

I brought back a few new ideas to the classroom after attending a literacy workshop at NAEYC in Dallas titled:

Wow your crowd with a read-aloud: 10 Strategies to increase engagement and interaction 

By Deb Stewart of Teach Preschool and Vanessa Levin of Pre-K Pages. 

I learned a lot of great ideas, but a couple pointers that I found helpful were:

Do not put books on the book shelf until they have been read aloud to the children.

If they don't "know" and love the books, than they are less likely to care for them and actually examine them on their own. We have a much younger and newer crew this year and there have been many injuries to our books. The children often pull them off the shelf, but rather than look at them they just stand or sit on them. I realized that I many of the books on the bookshelf had no context to them. They didn't know the story. I have a lot of books that are special to me. Those are my favorites to read. Unfortunately I have them all on a special shelf so they don't get ruined. I read them and then put them away. These are the stories the children would love to hold, because I love to read them. I have decided to start investing in second copies of all those books for them to have on their shelf. 

They also reminded me of the importance to read the children books over and over again. 

I know the importance of repetition for their language skills. I know the importance of them learning a story so thoroughly that they are able to retell it. However, it is easy to get into a routine of reading new books, because as adults we get bored with reading the same books over and over again. Children want to hear the same stories over and over again!

When I got back to the classroom I took all the books off our forward facing book shelf. I decided to start simple. I started reading them all our board books. I put the board books on the shelf. I knew these would be the easiest books for them to handle, but also the easiest books to memorize.  I am not talking about texture and lift-a-flap board books. Many great classic stories can be found in the form of board books. Three all time favorites from our board book collection are Jamberry, Brown Bear Brown Bear, and The Three Bears. 

Part of our daily routine is to clear from lunch, use the bathroom and then choose a book. They bring the book and their nap bag over to their mat and get everything settled. They read their books alone. Once children have settled into the school year a little bit, we occasionally have "book sharing."

I will invite children to another child's mat to share their books with each other. I felt the difference this week. Everybody is finally settling into the routine. I knew they were ready to give sharing a try.

I remind them to sit next to each other. I encourage them to hold one book on two laps, because that is the true meaning of sharing. The child who chose the book off the shelf is the "reader." Then they switch books and readers.  I was not only amazed with their interest and new ability to sit next to each other and share their books, but I heard something new.

As I walked around peaking at them, I heard them repeating the words to the books that I had recently read. Success. :)

Just a few of the things they are learning:

Language Skills

Sharing space with others

Building friendships

Similarities: Noticing they both have books about bears.

Explaining proper book handling
to our younger friends. 

Seuss Architecture

Tuesday morning I sat down at the table by myself while the kids were arriving and playing. 

I started to sketch this picture. 

The kids were instantly intrigued and started bombarding me with questions.

What is that place? What are you drawing?

I told them that they would just have to wait and see. I asked them what theories they had about it.

"Is that the Lorax's house?"

"No, but you are on the right track."

At circle time I hung up the picture and asked them what it reminded them of. What do you notice about it? 

This is how we started our conversation about Theodore Geisel, a.k.a. Dr.Seuss. 

I explained how he was an "imagination expert" and that he could use his imagination just the way kids do.

 He was very good at rhyming and writing words, but he also was an amazing artist. 

We started investigating the way Dr.Seuss liked to draw his houses and buildings. The kids noticed right away that he often included stairs. 

"There's a Wocket in My Pocket."

We looked at a couple books to find other things he commonly included. I introduced some vocabulary and so did the kids. I mentioned all the arches and columns. 

One child mentioned that all the windows were semi-ovals. :) 

"The Sleep Book"

 They noticed that he often included chimneys and smoke and of course stripes. 

Many times the features are crooked and curvy.  

"The Lorax"

The kids have been practicing their own drawings to include the same components as Seuss. We talked about how he drew his pictures with black and then added the color after. 

Another activity that we did on Friday was to make a tally chart as we skimmed through books.

We checked which books included the features that we have been practicing. They were really excited to shout out the items as I flipped through the pages. 

"The Sleep Book"

Wild things

That night in Max's room a forest grew.

And grew.

A Wild Rumpus.

Wild Thing Soup.

Wild Thing Face painting.

Friendship Story

At circle time I showed the children two little figurines and named them Freddy and Fiona. I started the story and they each had a turn to add to it. When we were all finished writing the story, we started brainstorming what we would need to recreate the story. We needed things the same size as Freddy and Fiona. 

Here is our story.

Freddy and Fiona.

Freddy and Fiona are friends.

They went into a dark cave.

They walked down the path and there they saw a bear.

And a dragon. They were hiding behind the rock and the dragon was blowing fire.

They saw a froggy. The froggy hopped into the water.

They saw a horse. They hugged the horse.

A rock came and rolled down the hill

They got out of the cave because they were scared. They ran (for their lives) out of the cave. They went home.

When they got home they saw that the bear was in their house too. They opened the door.

The bear came to their house because he wanted to be their friend.

He said, "Can I play with you?"

Fiona said, "yes."

Freddy said, "yes"

The bear and the people ran around the house. They were scared of the big monster (one-eyed with a drilling nose).

They ran away to hid beneath the chair.

The bear saved Freddy and Fiona from the monster.

They were safe.

The end.

The cave full of characters and the hill.

Freddy and Fiona behind the rock, hugging the horse.

The froggy in the water.

Fire blowing dragon.

The rock rolling.

Meanwhile back at Freddy and Fiona's house...

After we were all done arranging the parts of the story, they were able to do whatever they wanted. The characters remained the same, but the story took a lot of different turns. :)