Lucinda's Library Notes

Rudyard Kipling wrote a book in 1894 that Walt Disney made into a classic movie in 1967,  The Jungle Book is now extremely well known by many children around the world and is a proven favourite that the child(ren) in your life are sure to enjoy. So, other than just sit together and read the book, what else can you do to use this book to have fun together while building up literacy skills at the same time? Read the key word.  Choose a word such as 'jungle' and every time it shows up, have your child 'read' the word.  Each of you can choose different character parts and read out only what that character says. "Read" by looking at the pictures and discussing what you see.  Try to guess the story events before you read the book and then try to retell the story events after reading the book.  How close were the guesses?  Do you think your ideas were even better than the actual story? Count the animal types by reading the words or by looking at the pictures. Here...

  Songs :   In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight                   Who's the king of the Jungle? Who? Who?  (Sunday school song)                    Going on a Lion Hunt  (Can you go on a search for a 'lion' as you sing along?)                   Down in the Jungle/ Jungle Boogie In my first placement for the Communication Disorders Assistant Certificate years ago, the children loved the song Down in the Jungle and when I was done they gave me the visuals to use whenever I sing the song.  The song is also a book with CD that is very cheerfully illustrated which I enjoyed with children in my second placement. Books :  The Jungle Book, Jungle Boogie and Good Night Gorilla are three titles that come to mind.  (For more ideas, one will be featured on Tuesday's Library N...

My experiences :  When my youngest son was in speech therapy he was asked to keep a journal from week to week. Some of the entries were a picture of something he did or a sentence about the activity or a pamphlet glued in from a place we went to that he enjoyed.  He then took the journal to his small group session and the children would talk about the entry, building public speaking skills and leading to a question and answer session to help build up ability in that domain also.  It was a very effective activity that I would encourage people to try, especially over the summer.  My older boys attended a school that kept a journal for their handwriting class that also served to assess their language and writing skills.  See?  There are so many benefits!  I recently found one and was delighted to read an entry about the qualities my son thought he had and his view of self at age nine.  It is a great piece of his history and brought back good memories...

 "Omar discovers everyone has their own special talents and that people are good at different things."  This book by Maryann Kovalski was gifted to grade one students by TD Bank one year.  It is an illustrated day in the class where Omar, who dreams of becoming a famous artist and being paid with candy, discovers that he is not very good at drawing at all.  He rips up his drawing because of his disappointment. Attempt drawing something you love with a pencil like Omar. Look up tutorials on how to draw. Use the series of books, Draw Write Now , which shows how to draw something step by step and gives a writeup to copy about it for handwriting practice. Take time to just sketch and draw using a variety of materials.   Try to  paint with coloured ice.   Put ice, water and toys like fish, polar bears and penguins in a bin to play with.   Put coloured water in a cup along with fun items and freeze it.  Offer syringes of warm water t...

I have some cool ideas for you for the ICE themed activities!😎 Science:  Water forms: solid, liquid, gas.  Do experiments with melting ice, condensation, fog etc. Sensory:  Ice sensory play.  Either freeze objects into ice or put out a bin with ice cubes and other toys or coloured waters to mix with them. Use warm water or salt to melt ice. Identify what is cold vs warm. Gross Motor:  Go ice skating.  Practice glides and twirls on land.  Play Freeze Tag. Dance and when the music stops, freeze in place. Fine Motor:  Make writing materials with food dye in water frozen into sticks and then draw with them on paper or outdoors on the sidewalk.  You can use juice too if you do not want full dyes.   Building Structures:  Using salt you can stack ice cubes to make a tower.  You can get a big slab of ice and work on ice carving skills to make a structure too. Snack: Ice cream making! Cognitive:  Complete the ice cream colour...

One of the key reasons we read is to gain information.  Another is for entertainment. As a student, one of the key responses to reading is to express understanding of the text.  This is shown by answering questions that demonstrate comprehension.  It may be true and false, multiple choice, short answer or essay format.  It may be drawing a picture to represent a scene or a character study.  How do you prepare to answer such questions correctly and do well academically?  You need to learn how to find the information in the text you are reading!  This can start early on. Can they find the colour red?  Do they see the boy?  Where do they think the dog is hiding? What is this book going to be about?  What do you think will happen next?  Who are the main characters?  What is the climax of the story?  What was the problem and how did it get resolved? It takes a lot of discussion as we read a book to get the most out of a text. A...

My plan was to write about Little House on the Prairies but due to the passing of Eric Carle, I wanted to feature one of my favourites of the books he wrote: A House for Hermit Crab. This would be perfect to read for a child interested in the beach and/or sea life.  Some species are aquatic but many require both land and water to survive.   The colours in this book lend themselves to water painting or colouring activities. The story goes through changes that take place for each of the months of the year.  Create a big calendar and draw or paste on pictures of the changes that occur for the crab each month.  Practice putting the months of the year in order.  Do a memory activity by matching the change to the correct month. Hermit Crab needs a new house.  Talk about moving to a new home and about his ideas to decorate his home.  What would you do? The move was a bit scary for him.  He walked out of his shell into the big open sea. Talk about h...

🏠Your home, Structures, Animal Homes World Knowledge:  Name famous buildings around the world with a focus on those that are 'Homes". For example, the Taj Mahal is the home of deceased wife of an emperor in India, the Louvre in Paris is the home of the famous painting of Mona Lisa, the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto is the home of the Raptors, Buckingham Palace is the home of the Queen of England, Vatican Palace is the home of the Pope and Mackenzie House was home to Toronto's first mayor to suggest a few. Mapping (Math):  Draw a map to your home or draw the layout of your home. Draw to scale for added challenge. Vocabulary:  List as many types of homes as you can think of.  Examples are teepee, tent, townhouse, condo, mansion, farmhouse, trailer, tiny house, apartment, shelter, cabin, bungalow, cottage and so on. Discussion:  What type of home do you live in?  What do you love about home? Writing activity:  Home is....   Where I live.... ...

CUES: We use facial cues, lip reading, body language, volume and tone to help us interpret the verbal language we are hearing. Sometimes we are so reliant on these additional methods of communication and we become quite proficient with them so that we fail to realize when there are hearing deficiencies.  For those with known hearing loss, environmental adjustments help such as a quiet environment when speaking, speaking carefully face to face and so forth and the use of technology are helpful. SIGNS:  We are thankful to have infant hearing screening in place. While not perfect, it is a useful screen to help identify early concerns with hearing.  We should also watch for signs of a child not responding to loud noises, to their name or not picking up speech sounds at the appropriate age.  Check with your doctor if there are any concerns and have a hearing test done.  It is painless and valuable.  There may be other causes for these signs, some temporary such ...

Written by Sam McBratney and illustrated by Anita Jeram, the classic story of "I love you to the moon and back", is a playful interaction between big nutbrown hare and baby to guess how much they love each other.  Can we guess that?  It is fun to guess such a wonderful thing!   What is so great is that this book is all positives and affirmations. It creates an opportunity for parents to also share their love for their children.   Using this book Little nutbrown hare held big nutbrown hare's ears to make sure he could hear..  That was a wise first step.  If you have an important message to share, get their attention and make sure the other person can hear you first. Displaying his love by stretching out his arms as wide as they could go and as high as he could reach, loving all the way up to his toes (upside down), as high as he could hop, down the lane as far as the river/across the river and over the hills, and right up to the moon (and back).......

 📗   Ten Green Ideas come to mind... 1.  Green Light means GO!   -book, Go, Dog, Go, game: red light/green light. craft: traffic light tissue paper craft 2.  Green Zone vs. Red Zone : Are you good to go? Are you in a good mood or are you starting to get anxious or angry?   How does this connect with the Zones of Regulation? Use zones to promote self awareness and regulation.  It also helps to discuss how to handle situations that put someone in a red zone (upset) and to discuss calming techniques that will bring them back into the green zone. 3.  Green Earth Initiatives:   Book: When is it great to turn Green?  is an Environment Q&A book by M Drohan and C Levchuck that you may want to read.  Work on dividing items into the correct recycling bin.  Practice reduce, reuse and recycle projects.  Create crafts with recycled materials.  'Adopt' an animal (for home or through a local zoo)or plant a tree pro...

Guess what?  Today's topic is guesswork and/or prediction.   Some children are afraid to make guesses in case they are wrong but it is a critical skill and it is helpful to determine how much they are able to comprehend.  Let's encourage them by making guesswork fun! If a picture is worth one thousand words, it is still just a guess as to what is happening because it only represents a moment in time.  It is a snapshot that gives information but not all the details.  Even in a conversation it is hard to fully communicate our thoughts, We are using all the information we have to guess meanings in our encounters.  Sometimes words are taken literally but they were spoken with sarcasm so we need to use a variety of other cues to support the actual words and provide reference  The literal meaning is not always correct but we do our best to take all the information in and make a guess.  If we are wrong, we learn to adjust our assumptions or to hone ...

  Here are some thoughts on Curious George and the Firefighters. This book was chosen in honour of my son who is working on becoming a firefighter  and for the general love of Curious George that makes it a popular classic that you children will surely enjoy.   It is written by Margaret and H.A. Reys. 1, Monkey see, monkey do.    Make a game of this.  Can your child touch their ears? Make a funny face? Hop on one foot? Eat a banana?  Juggle a ball?  See if they can mimic your actions in this fun game. 2. Ask the question, "What would happen if....?"  Create a number of scenarios and see what their response would be.   Curious George was curious and often wondered what would happen and it frequently got him into trouble but it is by asking questions and exploring the world that you learn about life and people and this is the best path to learning.  Encourage curiosity.  What would happen if you tried to climb the ladde...