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Friday, August 3, 2012

Changing and Extending Stories and Rhymes

Often I will change a story to make it more suitable to my storytelling style. I will do that with other storytime activities as well. Often I find a great idea but it doesn't quite fit in with what I want to do. In this case, I not only made some changes but extended the activity as well.

In this year's CSLP manual there is a guessing game called "I Wish I Were." It is a flannelboard rhyme for toddlers. Children have to guess an animal from the clues given in a simple rhyme. Animal motions are also given. There are only four verses. The first three describe a monkey, fish, and bird. The answer to the fourth is "Me!"

Since the theme for my storytime was "Dreams" I decided to change the rhyme to "I Dreamt I Was Someone." Since the storytime was for ages 4 to 7, I decided to extend the activity by adding more animals to guess. I did not use the last verse at all. I also did not use the animal movements for I wanted the children to focus on getting the clues from the words. The animals I added are cat, cow, spider, rabbit, snake, and elephant. I printed out the rhymes along with clip art of the animals using Microsoft Publisher. I then pasted them on construction paper and made "cards" out of them. I read the rhyme and then opened the card to show the animal when the children guessed. The children really enjoyed this activity.

Rhyme

Microsoft Clip Art Animal

Guessing Cards

When I find stories and rhymes that don't quite fit what I want to do, I look at them to see if they can be tweaked. Often I end up with something that I will be able to use over and over.

This week's Flannel Friday Roundup is hosted by Liz of Putting Smiles on Faces.

4 comments:

  1. Cute! I am going to have to do this with wilderness animals for my nature storytime.

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    1. I used adverbs ending in "ly" to rhyme with "Who could that be?" Also, my "Night Animals" Family Story Time post for 8/1/12 is mostly about forest animals which may give you some ideas.

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  2. Nice! I often do "mystery pictures" where I have a file folder all stuck together except one edge and I slowly pull out the images - which usually are related to the stories or activities we have been doing. I think I will try using the rhymes to add to this activity for the over 3 year old crowd.

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    1. I love the idea of slowly pulling out the image while having the children guess. My family story time kids love guessing games so I will definitely steal your "mystery pictures" file folder idea. Thanks!

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