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Clapton Park Children's Centre

#14 Sharing Stories

Dear parents and carers,
We hope you are all keeping well and staying safe. As well as this week’s weekly challenge, we also wanted to take the opportunity to share some resources in light of the recent Black Lives Matter movement.

Black Lives Matter
We are discussing what steps we can take as a Children’s Centre to further develop our anti-racist pedagogy, including how to talk to children about race and racism in an age appropriate way, and making sure we have the right training, high quality books and other resources to do this. While there is lots to be done in terms of teaching older children about colonial history and racism, we believe it is also important to be proactive in tackling the racism in our society, and celebrating diversity, from an early age.
This 20 minute (US-based)  podcast– is very useful for parents and carers of all ethnicities to think about how to talk to young children about race and racism:
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/24/716700866/talking-race-with-young-children?fbclid=IwAR262i36JkNreR2lYg0pPPHDPL9u6iyHSVkMV2vrR3Ehdl-1oG-0ZlXKMrY&t=1592304838702
See also these book lists of children’s books: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/booklists/b/black-lives-matter/

Weekly Challenge #14: Sharing books: Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See?

 

From the book : Brown bear, brown bear what do you see?
The book is available on YouTube, this help explore sense phonics sounds and literacy. As well as colours and animal names. After reading the story children can create their own tools to explore senses such as binoculars using toilet paper rolls or similar, design and make their own ears and glasses.


Babies

This book is the perfect introduction to learn about colours

Each animal is paired with a particular coloir… Perfect! A great way to learn colors. This is a perfect opportunity to begin teaching her this skill. As we approach each animal, I paired the particular color with the animal. I would praise any vocal approximation he/she attempted! Each page leads seamlessly into the delight of colorful collage of animals and simple repetitive language. Babies will be able to point to the animals and learn the names

2-5 year olds

Early Literacy

With the highly repetitious language, this allows for early learners to remember the content and read this story independently. As well as tuning into a repetitive rhythm, being able to recite this story themselves helps children to develop their auditory memory skills, a key part of early literacy.

Comprehension

While we are on the topic of early literacy, ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear’ also allows for increased comprehension skills. This story goes through a series of animals in a particular order. The more you read it, the more your tiny readers will remember all of the animals that were in the story!

 

After any read aloud, it is great to ask your child/ren about the story. Who was in the story? Which character was your favorite? Why? These questions will not only increase comprehension, they will also aid in the development of language skills!

 

Emerging Vocals

As well as reading the story, ‘Brown Bear Brown Bear’ is a fantastic book for increasing your child’s ability to distinguish and create a range of sounds. Here are a few ways to increase spontaneous vocals using this book.

With each animal, ask your child what animal sound they make. Animal noises are a GREAT way to begin introducing intentional sounds with children. They are ‘silly’ in nature and fun to produce which makes it reinforcing. Ask your child what the name of the animal is (labeling). Once they know the order of animals, see if your child knows which animal is coming next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-NlZH_HcOw

https://www.pre-kpages.com/activities-for-brown-bear-brown-bear-what-do-you-see/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/161144492900304337/