Read the story as you would a play, with each of you reading different characters' lines. Stories are more fun when characters have different voices, don't you think? My husband and I both love reading books aloud this way, and our kids just love it when we do. There are some books that are more conducive to this than others, of course (including the fabulous Elephant Piggie we talk so much about), but one of our other favorite series for this kind of reading is Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel. This is another one of our all-time favorite friendships, and I absolutely love these stories. Frog and Toad's personalities are so different that I just can't imagine them being read in the same voice. Frog always ends up sounding a bit like Kermit, and Toad always sounds a little more raspy and gruff. My son just loves being Toad, and has listened to the stories so many times that he has most of them memorized. I just love hearing his silly little Toad "accent" as we read the stories together. It's also quite common for him to quote lines from various stories as he is going about his day, and it's always fun to see what lines have stuck in his head. Children needn't be independent readers to take part in this kind of story reading duet. Read any favorite book enough times and they'll be bound to learn their lines along the way. Draw it, build it, act it out! After reading Jamie's post at hands on: as we grow about acting out Little Blue Truck, I realized that we could be doing even more to bring our favorite stories to life. This is one of the things I love most about blogging: becoming connected to so many other people and their brilliant ideas. Why not tape a huge roll of paper down on to the floor (love that blue painter's tape!) and draw out a landscape or scene? Bust out the blocks, the trucks, the animals, the Playmobil figures, the Duplos and let those little minds go to work! I'll sometimes let my son watch Cars just so he can line up all of his cars and act it all out. We make up Thomas the tank engine stories as we play with our trains on a daily basis. I don't know why I never thought to do this with more of our books!
Have other ideas that you're willing to share? I'd love to hear them! Feel free to post ideas or links to your blog in the comments below.
4 comments:
We've just been acting out Ping-with card ducks, a cardboard box and bridge, a real horse whip and basket. There was a bit of discussion about who should spank Ping-poor duck!
Puppets on spoons worked with for the three bears and the children have acted out several stories involving shops. Pretend shops seem to be a real favourite.
My daughter is just about 17 months, and we've been doing a similar thing with her (on a young toddler level). Around 12-13 months, she got into "Go Away Big Green Monster" complete with the monster puppet. From then on she was hooked on acting out things from her books. She especially loves Sebastien Braun's "Meeow" books. In the train book she will wave a scarf along with Moo or ring a bell with Meeow. In the band book, she will always drum on the book along with the band (in our house the kitty band plays "When the Saints Go Marching In"), and the other day she was absolutely thrilled to go grab a wooden spoon and bring the book to be read. I love these kinds of activities, especially when she comes up with the idea. I think it can be started much younger than people realize.
I've made a post in response, detailing some of what I've done with my daughter between the ages of 12 and 17 months.
http://litallusions.blogspot.com/2012/01/playing-with-stories.html
Thank you for the great topic idea!
I really like these books because my kids many time listing funny and horror stories when he was on sleeping bed thanks for sharing plugin developers .
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