Books in Motion: Connecting Preschoolers with Books through Art, Games, Movement, Music, Playacting and Props
Angel L. Avery-Wright
I had the pleasure of attending the “Books in Motion” and “Non-Fiction in Motion” sessions with Julie Dietzel-Glair at the 2016 ECE Summit. I spent three hours having a blast with books. Julie was a very hands-on educator and her ideas were so inspiring. I bought her book for my daughter, who is majoring in Education at Kutztown University
Julie spent 11 years as a librarian where she looked forward to story time. Julie provided many books for us to look at, all of which are mentioned in her book. She showed us how to use activities to enhance the learning aspects of those books. For example, Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes is the story of a kitten who thinks the moon is a giant bowl of milk. While children are hearing the story, she has them draw a kitten on a paper plate to represent the kitten finally finding her bowl of milk. This activity connects art with the story but also gives children a more active role in learning from the book.
While using the book I’m Trying to Love Spiders by Bethany Barton, children are given a paper spider. Each time the child in the book squishes the spider, children can ‘squish’ their paper spider, until the end when the child in the book finally likes spiders. This is a great connection to something children often experience: fear of bugs/spiders, squishing spiders, and learning about their positive attributes. This is also a great resource for how to care for the environment and the animals that share it with us.
Julie’s book provides so many wonderful learning connections to the many books in it. Some other books included are Baby’s Shoe by Ros Asquith, The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger and Animal Baths by Bob Barner. This book is a great reference for new and experienced educators to tie literacy into everyday activities including math, science, gross motor play and ar
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