Story Tubs

Arielle (mommy):

I was searching for inspiration on Pinterest when I stumbled upon a tub filled with: The book How Do Dinosaurs Count to Ten, a calculator, magnetic numbers, 10 counters, dinosaur toys, a little composition notebook, and paper.  This gave me a great idea that should have been obvious to me before... Story Tubs!  

For the next few weeks, as I read stories aloud to the kids, I am going to create coordinating tubs to go along with the stories.  

Cynthia and I have decided to start teaching around themes to keep the kids interested and keep ourselves focused.  This weeks's theme is food, since we are going to start learning about the 5 senses, beginning with taste and smell, food is a logical theme.  

I want my story tubs to focus on the theme, so I found books that have food in them to create story tubs around.  I selected The Lunchbox Surpsrise and In the Diner.  

Since Lunchbox Surprise is about a boy who's mom forgets to put food in his lunchbox and his friends help him by sharing their food with him (a good book to reinforce sharing too), I included three lunch boxes I found around the house and lots of play food.  I found as much of the actual food as was mentioned in the story as I could.  Lil enjoyed acting out the story for O.  

For In the Diner I gathered item so the kids could act out the story, or play restaurant.  The story has a cat and a dog in it, so I included those too.  I also put a small pad of paper and a marker so they could play waiter and take orders.  

Guru moment: 

The point of story tubs is to get kids excited about reading and help with comprehension.  It doesn't matter which book you select, the best way to create a tub is to find a book you already have, read it yourself, and then look for objects you already have that go along with the story.  It shouldn't require any shopping or a lot of prep. :)

Follow up:  Cynthia gives them a try!

Cynthia(nanny): 

I wasn't sure about introducing the story bins, but Arielle reminded me of how easy they were to put together and the benefits of early exposure to retelling strategies. Retelling a story is a foundational skill of successful, life-long readers. 

Here is our tub for one of the girls favorite stories, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

Guru moment:  

After awhile the girls started getting their own foods to add to the bin.  I asked them what foods they would eat if they were the very hungry caterpillar which allowed them to make a text to self connection.