Last week, I had the chance to pop into the Older Preschool classroom as a special guest for our 'Raising Readers' program.
Each year, we devote the last 6-ish weeks of the Spring Semester to celebrate our budding young CCCC readers. Throughout the program, each child has the opportunity to bring books from home (on their assigned week) to share with the class, special guests come to share stories in all 3 classrooms, and we end with a closing ceremony where each child receives a certificate of achievement!
In Toddlerville, the teachers read the books (obviously) to the class but in the Preschool Rooms, the kids can 'read' their books to their classmates if they so desire....it's pretty cute:)
The 'Special Guest' readers that visit the classrooms (teachers, parents, other family members) play a big role in planting the love seeds of reading into our students hearts. Reading is such an essential tool for growing successful future life scholars.
Do you have kids? Read to them!!! Do you not have your own kids but maybe know some kids? Read to them!!! Kids not a part of your every day life situation? Dontate books and funds to organizations that get books into young readers hands!
Read! Read! Read! Phew...sorry. Just wanted you to know how important reading and having access to books are to the future educational successes of all young children!
Ok, back to my 'Special Guest' experience in the OP. I chose a book called 'Ella Sarah Gets Dressed'. A synopsis of the tale in case you are unfamiliar:
Ella Sarah wakes up and wants to wear her pink polka dot pants, her dress with orange and green flowers, her purple and blue striped socks, her yellow shoes and her red hat.
Several people in the family disagree and offer her different outfits that are less dressy, less fancy, and less silly (blue dress with white sandals, yellow shirt with white shorts, old purple overalls).
Ella Sarah insists each time she is offered an alternative that she wants to wear:
Her pink polka dot pants, her dress with orange and green flowers, her purple and blue striped socks, her yellow shoes and her red hat!!!
In the end, she proudly gets dressed in the outfit of her choice, the doorbell rings and her friends have arrived in similar outfits all ready for a fancy tea party!
I decided for this lesson to incorporate my love of children's stories with another love- sewing!
I brought my machine to school, asked the kids if they knew what it was (one kid said 'That's a mixer!!!'), and then explained the basics of its function.
We read the story and then examined our own clothing to look for seams and thread. I explained that all clothing is sewn together (either by a person or a machine) and we talked about the clothing that Ella Sarah had chosen to wear.
Back to the sewing machine...the night before, I had prepared fabric squares to match the patterns described in the story:
I handed the book over to lovely lead OP teacher Rachel and she (slowly) read the story again. As she said each piece of clothing Ella Sarah wanted to wear, I sewed the corresponding fabric square to the one before....and on and on until we reached the end.
At the conclusion, we had one LONG row of fabric pieces that told our story in textile form! We passed the fabric story along thru the group and the kids were able to examine it and test the strength of the threads with a little tug. Then we hung it up in the classroom for them to look at later and 'tell' the story again:
It was a super fun way to tell a story and to introduce the art of sewing to the crew. At the end, one little girl said,"The next time I have a birthday, I want to get a sewing machine!"
I hope she does.
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