Showing posts with label Dramatic Play. Show all posts

Monday, April 28, 2014

Elephant & Piggie Book Extension Activity

I Am Invited to a Party!

(An Elephant and Piggie Book)

by Mo Willems

Our kids LOVE the Elephant & Piggie books by Mo Willems. The text is easy enough for our youngest reader, but still laughable for our older kids. The character illustrations say so much with very few words and offer plenty of opportunity to practice inferencing.

During our many re-reads of these books our family began to brainstorm ways to bring Elephant and Piggie into our playtime too. In the coming days we hope to share several Mo Willems extension activities for your early childhood kiddos to enjoy.

The Basics:

After reading the book together pull out your dress up collection for some party primping. Print a stack of invites (see below) and brainstorm goofy party possibilities. Begin by handing each child an invite and letting them get creative about their costuming. Once they are getting in to the game let them choose their own cards and have you, or their friends, try to guess what type of party they have been invited to. This simple game brings new life to the costume box and LOTS of giggles!

Tips:

Before filling out the cards you may want to take inventory of your classroom (or home) dress up collection to be sure there are sufficient props to prep for the appropriate parties. Here are a few silly examples of the parties our family was invited to: Kitchen Owl Party, Construction Monkey Party, Clown Doctor Party, Star Wars Dog Party, Pirate Tea Party, Princess Pool Party, Ghost Baseball Party. If is also fun to leave some cards blank. As the kids get into the silliness of inventing wardrobes they will come up with great combinations of their own to add to the blank cards.

Examples:

For more extension activities check out our Mo Willems board on Pinterest!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Dictate, Draw, and Drama Activity with a Build Your Own Stage Suggestion

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Karen, the Sippy Cup Central Mom, submitted this interactive language arts activity titled Dictate, Draw, and Drama.

The idea behind the 3 D's (dictate, draw, and drama) is creating or retelling a story, illustrating it, and then acting it out.

Have your child begin by telling a story using his or her amazing imagination.

As the child tells the story write it down in his or her own words.

When the story is complete, allow the student to draw an accompanying picture on a separate piece of paper.

Finally, set up your stage and prepare your props to dramatize the new story.

Don't already have your own puppet stage? Check out these step by step instructions for inexpensively creating the fold up stage shown below.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Dramatic Play

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Children learn through dramatic play. Where they are trying out all kinds of roles and responsibilities they are learning to understand the world around them. As they process new expereinces kids also develop social skills, imagination, and creativity!

Several of our readers have come up with some great dramatic play stations. Here are some suggestions to get you started.

Teaching with Preschoolers has a post of tips for putting together prop boxes for dramatic play.

Preschool Planner 101 has a detailed post about how to put together a dramatic play in the POND station.

Sharin' with Sharron has posted suggestions for outdoor dramatic play including a picnic and camping set up.

Bakers and Astronauts explains the importance of a dramatic play area and shows pictures of several of the items included in theirs.

Kelly from Doing Life Together put together a cocoa stand.