Whole Child Development
Pizza Shop, Pizzeria, Pizza Restaurant, whatever you like to call it, it’s a perfect dramatic play scenario for preschoolers. I would venture to say that most preschoolers have experience with pizza. It’s something familiar and almost universally enjoyed. Here are some prop ideas for creating a great pizza shop themed dramatic play area that will have your children ready to serve you up a slice!
Mary Ann Hoberman’s The Seven Silly Eaters
Pinkalicious, by sister team Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann, is a unique and hilarious book about a girl who develops an acute case of “pinkatitis” after eating one too many pink cupcakes. At first, being completely pink sounds like a marvelous improvement to this little girl, until she gradually turns to a deeper shade of red. On doctor’s orders, she eats as many green foods as she can find in her fridge, the only way to return to her normal self. This book is a surefire winner, and not just with the pink crowd. The boys I’ve read it to have loved it as well!
After reading this book, I talk with the children about whether or not this scenario could really happen. Of course not! But then, I ask what would happen if they ate too many cupcakes. They certainly wouldn’t feel well, and their bodies wouldn’t be healthy. Then we talk about healthy and unhealthy foods. I prepare ahead of time, cutting out pictures of food from my local grocery store flyers and laminating them to cards. (Be sure to collect a variety, spanning the food groups.)
Laura Numeroff is perhaps best known for her “If You Give a…” series (“If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”, “If You Give a Moose a Muffin”, etc.). Ten Step Guide to Living with Your Monster is lesser-known, though just as great. This whimsical spin on monsters explains how one should select and care for a pet monster. This book is perfect for dispelling monster fears as it exposes them for the silly characters they really are!
Big Pumpkin
Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini is the perfect non-Halloween, Halloween book. It’s not specifically Halloween themed, but it is a creative combination of a grouchy, hungry witch and some sly pigs who use costumes to avoid becoming ingredients. As you read this story with your little ones, really play up the voices and point out the details in the pictures. With particularly young children, you may need to explain that the pigs are dressing up in order to trick the witch. From there, you can easily make connections with their own dress-up experiences, on Halloween or otherwise.
I would make a note of two things here. The end of the book ties this story in with the Big Bad Wolf from the Three Little Pigs. Very young children will have a hard time making that connection. You can help this connection by being sure that the children are already familiar with the story of the Three Little Pigs through previous activities, or you can just glide over it. It’s not a critical element in the story. Secondly, the witch does get upset several times in this book and basically throws a tantrum. Take the opportunity to teach social skills by pointing out her behavior and what is and isn’t appropriate behavior. It’s easy to point out undesirable behavior in a witch because, afterall, she is a witch. Don’t detract too much from the story, but if you’re seeing some similar behavior in your own children, you might give them the opportunity to be the expert and make suggestions for a better course of action for the witch. They may later realize these suggestions work for themselves as well!
This is a well-known fingerplay that in 1998 was illustrated and put in book format by Dan Yaccarino. It’s a book little ones enjoy reading, especially once they are already familiar with the fingerplay and can essentially “read” the book independently. Whether you use the book or not, here’s the fingerplay!
Five little pumpkins, sitting on a gate (Five fingers on top of opposite hand. I usually explain the word “gate” the first time through. For the next five lines, show the number of fingers corresponding with the ordinal number and really play up the rest of the intention of the line with your facial expression.)
Children love good storytelling! When the storyteller engages them with facial and voice expression and tailors the story to the young audience, even the most boisterous young children can be found sitting with rapt attention! Listening to storytelling has much of the same benefits for young children as being read to. There isn’t the print corrolation, but there is tremendous building of language and listening skills and the concept of story structure. Here is a fun and engaging storytelling activity perfect for this time of year! You should practice it and get comfortable with it before “performing” for children. Let your own creativity take over and change it up any way you like to make it your own story! I actually heard this story as I was sitting in a library story time with my sons and tweaked it a bit to make it mine. I’m sure you could put your own spin on it and make it even better!
Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis, is relatively new, and completely new to me this year! It’s a delightful story about what happens when two mischievous boys start a giant pumpkin rolling down a hillside. One by one, family members envision delicious pumpkin treats, as the pumpkin continues on it’s destructive path. Finally, the pumpkin is stopped and well-used on a Halloween night. The text on the page seems to bounce right along with the pumpkin, a great feature for building phonological awareness. The children (OK, so did I) really get a kick out of seeing the whole family in their Halloween costumes!
Follow up this book by making a favorite pumpkin treat, like Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread!
Have I mentioned yet that I really love Lois Ehlert’s books? Her collage-style illustrations are just so simplistically and realistically appealing. Particularly for fall, they really capture the vibrancy and texture of the season! In Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf, Lois Ehlert spotlights one of my favorite trees, Maple, as it is selected and planted while a seedling, then as it grows through every season, highlighting the narrator’s favorite season for the tree, fall! This book is great as a science focus, as well as for an art focus!
Afterward, have the children create their own colorful fall trees. First smock up! Once each child has a piece of paper on an art tray to work with, have each one take a brush, and with brown paint make the trunk and branches of their trees. Talk about the difference between the straight lines of the trunk and the curving, climbing, intertwining branches at the top. [Read more…]
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