Today, I'm continuing my series of preschool story time starters inspired by the Fizz, Boom, Read! summer reading theme. (If you missed it, I began two weeks ago with the
five senses, and last week I posted about
temperature.) Today's theme is "Living or Non-Living?". Though some of the resources below specifically address the differences between things that are and are not alive, this theme can also be expanded to include topics like growing, planting, gardening, animals, and
trees.
Miss Katie's Recommended Books
- What’s Alive? by Kathleen Zoehfeld, illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott
Introduce
the theme of story time with this beginning science book. Either read
the entire book straight through, or pick and choose segments that you
think will be easiest for your audience to understand.
- Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? by Susan Shea, illustrated by Tom Slaughter
This
lift-the-flap book is a great guessing game that reinforces the concept
of being alive with a series of questions about whether objects can or
cannot grow. Kids as old as six and seven get really into this, but even
the little ones will enjoy trying to figure out whether cars grow to
become trucks or shirts grow to become sweaters.
- Are You Living? by Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Viviana Garofoli
This
is a singable non-fiction picture book by an excellent CYBILS award
winning children's poet, all about the differences between living and
non-living things. Sidebars provide additional information that can be
shared as appropriate.
Other Possible Books
Songs & Rhymes
- Song: Everything Grows by Raffi
This song would be fun to sing with musical accompaniment (guitar, ukulele, piano, etc.) and/or with the kids holding up pictures to represent each growing thing represented in the lyrics. This would also be a good one to play as background music while the kids color or work on a craft.
- Rhyme: Five Eggs and Five Eggs
This fingerplay is also fun to do with puppets if you have an egg and a hen.
- Song: Mr. Sun
After discussing how the sun helps living things grow, sing this song with a puppet, or holding up your arms in a sunshine shape.
- Song: One Seed by the Laurie Berkner Band
Watch this video for the hand motions for Laurie Berkner's song about the importance of planting trees and passing down responsibility for our Earth to future generations.
Games
- Flannel Board Sorting Game: Is this alive or not alive?
Provide
children with a series of objects and ask them to decide whether they
are alive or not. Hopefully, if you have a lot of flannel board pieces
already made, you'll be able to choose from what you have without having
to make anything new. Otherwise, kizclub.com has a lot of great clipart
of all different objects that can be printed out, laminated, and used
as is, and or used as templates for actual flannel pieces. There is also a set of Living and Nonliving Picture Cards available here. Librarians
who are looking to introduce more technology at story time might also
try sharing this game from Thinkcans.net.
- Act out the Animals
Provide
puppets, flannel board pieces, or just simple pieces of paper printed
with the names/images of animals and have the kids act them out. You
could also ask them to act out other living things, such as flowers or
plants, though they might have a limited range of movements. A good book
to inspire animal movements is Pretend You're a Cat by Jean Marzollo.
Visit These Sites for More Ideas
