Early Literacy Aside--Explain: Teddy Bear puppet talking to introduce the skill: Today we are going to develop your children's story knowledge and thinking skills. These skills help them to understand what they read when they learn to read. [Then hide the bear in a black piece of paper like a cave.]Read We're Going on a Bear Hunt, putting motions to the words. Activity: Give children colored stips of paper to represent each of the scenes in the book. Connect each color strip with each scene; for example: blue for river, green for grass, brown for mud. Now, retell the story using first, second, third, etc.--first we went to the river and as they say the phrase they place the blue colored strip down, and so on. For the last action where they go home, have a piece of material to represent a blanket. Early Literacy Aside--Example: With this activity what your child knows, by helping them in a couple of ways--retelling the story so they understand how stories work and also with sequencing and connecting colors with actions which develops their thinking skills.

Submitted by Irania Patterson, Public Library of Charlotte and Mechlenburg County (NC) and Saroj Ghoting