The teachers discovered the children were really interested in books and reading over the last few months. Children not only wanted to sit and turn pages of the books, but they were found to be pointing out pictures, asking questions, and story telling on their own. The teachers wanted to support this interest in literacy, so they carefully selected new books to the classroom that fit all children’s interest as well as a focus on diversity and inclusion.
When the new books were selected teachers set them on display for children to see at eye level and on the bookshelf. Children gravitated to the shelf and began pulling the books out. Comparing the new books with books that were already in the classroom. The children were immediately able to point out new books on their own, and quickly requested to be read to.
Teachers began reading in small group work or one on one while highlighting different parts of the story. Children in the classroom were not only excited about the story line of the book but they found joy in looking at pictures of the Authors, talking about the front and the back of the book and exploring how pages turned left. The children in the classroom started seeking out the jacket of the book to see what other books the author had written and would search the classroom in hopes to find that book. Children also enjoyed searching for items in the story if prompted or asked where something was in the book.
After noticing how much the children enjoyed playing I-spy with the books we decided that we would create our own version of an I-spy book in the classroom. The children were thrilled that they could be authors of a classroom book. We let the children take pictures around the classroom of their favorite toys and then printed the pictures out. Teachers helped glue the pictures together to create objects to search for while reading the book we created.
After we created our own classroom book this sparked an interest about what an author and illustrator do. We spent many days working on large group projects with butcher paper and various writing materials writing down our own stories and storytelling. This only grew our love for books in the classroom. We decided to turn our bulletin board into a representation for the love of our books while also focusing on how books show diversity in the classroom. We used copies of books to boarder our bulletin board while using flash cards to write on. Teachers talked about how words can be powerful, and we highlighted meaningful words to us such as learner, education, leader, and love while asking the children what words were meaningful to them.
When children lead the learning through play it can provide rich and meaningful experiences for all involved. A simple idea such as adding books to the classroom can blossom and turn into a month full of learning experiences. While the teachers added the books to the classroom the children highlighted the interest of being an Author and storytelling which lead to hitting many domains in our curriculum with early learning standards. Children expressed feelings and turn taking which highlighted social/emotional skills. While storytelling and expressing emotions to each other focused on language. Teachers can’t wait to observe and see where we go next in this project work.
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