Family Programming at the Public Library -- Story Kits
The Story Kits Summarized
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, by Judi Barrett
The Clown, by Quentin Blake
The Snowman/ El muneco de nieve, by Raymond Briggs
Laura Charlotte, by Kathryn Galbraith
Look, Look, Look, by Tana Hoban
Shapes, Shapes, Shapes, by Tana Hoban
Changes, Changes, by Pat Hutchins
Amanda and the Mysterious Carpet, by Fernando Krahn
I Spy/ Veo: Un libro deo adivinanzaz ilustradas, by Jean Marzollo
Picnic, by Emily McCully
Bein' With You This Way, by W. Nikola-Lisa
The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash/ El dia que la boa de Jimmy se como le ropa,
by Trinka Hakes Noble.
Grandfather Tang's Story: A Tale Told in Tangrams, by Ann Tompert
Tuesday, by David Weisner
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In the town described in this humorous book, food falls from the sky. This discussion activity will help parents and children recognize the elements of a tall tale. Parents and children will identify the benefits and problems of having your food delivered like the weather.
In this wordless book, the Clown is a discarded toy on a mission. In the activity, parents and children will work together to recognize the role that cause and effect play in the story. Each character's actions result in the next event, so that after reading this book, families will map the story sequentially.
This classic tale is a wordless fantasy about the life of a snowman. In the activity, parents will encourage their children to tell the story by using the clues of the pictures. After reading the story, parents and children will play HOUSE, a bingo-type game and win prizes, learning the English and Spanish for household items in the process. This Story Kit has 15 books in English and 15 in Spanish.
This is the tale of a mother sharing her precious childhood toy with her daughter. In the experiential activity, families will learn the different ways in which we share family stories. For one, families will read Laura Charlotte. In addition, families will listen to the audiotape of the song "The Marvelous Toy" by Peter, Paul and Mary. Both the tape and the book tell stories of parents sharing childhood memories with their children. Parents and children will make a toy together and build their own memory.
Working with this photographic, wordless book takes some guesswork. Using this book, composed of pages masking a larger picture, parents and children must solve the problem of what is shown after viewing only the small portion. Each page reveals more of the masked picture and adds perspective. After reading and guessing their way through this book, families will make their own "Look" book.
This photographic book shows us that shapes are everywhere. The activity will help parents learn to pick out the shapes in the world around us. Children, with their parents guidance, will make shape folders to introduce the names of the shapes. Using the shape folders they created, the parents will read the book with their children, identifying shapes together. Finally, the families will make their own "Shapes" book. Materials in the facilitator's guide are in English and Spanish.
What else can happen to this wooden toy couple? First, they build a house, then, when the house burns down what happens next? The activity accompanying this wordless book introduces the reading strategy of prediction. Parents develop questions to help their children guess what the characters will do next. After reading the book, parents and children will make paper cutouts of the colorful blocks, allowing them to add a tactile and kinesthetic experience to the visual.
This wordless book shows the imaginative adventures of a little girl on a magic carpet. Parents and children will search for pictorial clues such as expressions in the illustrations to identify the character's feelings. After reading this book, families will complete a survey about feelings from both the parents' and the childrens' perspectives. Materials in the facilitator's guide are in English and Spanish.
These books are photographic treasure hunts with rhyming clues. Parents and children will learn that reading can be active, by working together to solve the picture riddles. Parents and children will take turns describing a particular object on a page and challenging their partner to find it. The activity encourages both active participation and active listening. The Story Kit includes different books of the I Spy series in one kit. Some of these Story Kits contain both English and Spanish versions of I Spy which are not direct translations of the accompanying book. Materials in the facilitator's guide are in English and Spanish.
This wordless book shows us a carefree family of mice going to the country on a summer's day. In this family activity, parents will use prediction and discussion to help the children guess what is going to happen next to the mouse family. Questioning techniques will start the children talking and keep them engaged in the story. Families will also create an oral and/or written story about the pictures in the book. After the book is read, families will make and eat edible butterflies. Materials in the facilitator's guide are in English and Spanish.
This is a lilting, rhythmic book about the many ways that people are alike and different. Parents and children will recognize the words and phrases that are repeated. Parents will encourage their children to anticipate the chorus and join in. After reading the book, parents and children will make their own face puppets showing the diversity of physical attributes inside and among families.
Parents will relate to this humorous story of a girl's adventures while on a class trip to a farm. Somehow, when asked what happened, the girl tells only a piece of the story. In the family activity, parents read the book and discover the true sequence of the events. With their parent's guidance, children create a storyboard arranging the story's pictures chronologicallly. The parents and children explore how cause and effect shaped the tale. The "Story Kit" has 15 books in English and 15 in Spanish.
Grandfather Tang tells his granddaughter a traditional Chinese folktale using tangrams. In the family activity, parents will learn about tangrams and how to use them to tell the story as they read the book. Parents will help their children arrange the tangram pieces into the different animal shapes that the fox fairies assume. In addition, the parents will encourage their children to guess which animal will the fox fairy will turn into next. The families will use tangrams to make more shapes after reading the story.
The lush illustrations allow parents and children an opportunity to enjoy an excursion into the world of make-believe. The pictures delve into the character's emotions in detail, expressing in another medium the humor of the story's events. In the family activity, parents will guide their children in creating a story from the pictures. Materials in the facilitator's guide are in English and Spanish.