Teaching English with Picture Books

Ketchup on Your Cornflakes (by Nick Sharratt, Scholastic; ISBN: 059054151X )

This book is a real hit with the kids. There is no story, it's just a mix and match of crazy combinations as indicated by the title. The kids learn to say "Do you like ... on/in your ..." and have great fun doing so.

I followed the method described in Sandie Mourao's great handbook: JET Realbooks in the Primary Classroom (Mary Glasgow / Scholastic; ISBN: 1900702193). Sandie's instructions are clear and helpful, her ideas are fun and they work.

One activity is for the kids to make their own book, as I've got kids as young as 4 in some of my classes, I worried about the representational drawing that is needed here. The results were mixed: Some kids rose the the challenge and made great simple drawings, others were overwhelmed by the task and just scribbled on their books, some asked me to draw outlines for them, some coloured in the mini-flashcards and stuck them into their books. I found that if I gave one kid mini-flashcards to use, everybody wanted them and all creativity stopped. My best solution was to give each kid 2 or 3 flashcards to colour and stick in and get them to draw the rest themselves.

• I made up a game that goes well with this book. Each kid puts one hand in a pile in the middle, the "wolf" holds their hand above the pile. Kids take turns asking the wolf if he or she likes particular foods. "Do you like chips?" "No (I don't)" , "Do you like apple pie?" "No (I don't)", and so on until a child asks the wolf whether he or she likes children (or boys, or girls), the wolf says "Yes" and tries to catch any hands that are still on the pile.

There are 2 new book entries, both using ideas from handbooks for teachers.
Pics of artwork will be added when my husband gets back with the camera.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar
(by Eric Carle, Hamish Hamilton Children's Books; ISBN: 0241003008)

This is a children's classic, the caterpillar eats a lot of different things, then turns into a butterfly. The days of the week, the numbers 1 to 5 and lots of food items come up in the book so it's really good for teaching vocab.

The translation of this book is also popular here in Germany so I was worried that the bigger kids (8 and 9 year-olds) might reject it as something babyish. I managed to avoid that by using lots of prediction "Can anyone guess which book we're going to read?" "Who read this book when they were little?" "Can you remember what the caterpillar ate on Saturday?"

I used some of the ideas from Tell It Again: The New Storytelling Handbook For Primary Teachers (by Ellis and Brewster, Longman; ISBN: 0582447771). In addition to ready made material for several books, this handbook gives lots of good general advice about creating activities for picture books.

• The egg box caterpillar as suggested in Tell It Again. A local shopkeeper gave me about 30 egg trays so each kid could have a really long caterpillar if they wanted. I used diluted finger paints (applied with paintbrushes) to colour them and red dot stickers for the eyes. The finger paints colour well but don't dry fast enough, so the parents had to help their kids carry wet caterpillars home.
  
  
  
• A finger puppet. I used green crepe paper wrapped around their finger and taped on with a red dot sticker stuck on the end for the whole face (kids draw eyes and mouth on the sticker with a pen). We did a little fingerplay taken from the traditional "Two Little Dickybirds":
  
  Two little caterpillars sitting on a leaf
  One named Wendy, one named Keith,
  Crawl away Wendy, crawl away Keith,
  Come back Wendy, come back Keith
  
  
• A Rorschach ink-blot style butterfly. Make a template to draw the butterfly's outline. The kids splodge paint onto one side and fold the paper over to make a mirror image.
  
  
  
• We made caterpillars that really can crawl across a leaf but this project was so fiddly and teacher intensive that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with more than 3 pupils.
  
  The picture below is the same idea using a ladybird (this one was from my daughter's kindergarten, that's where I got the idea). Pull the wool loop under the leaf to move the insect along the leaf.
  
  
  

Ana Teixiera's got a great idea for making aprons out of bin bags. She gets the kids to do it themselves as a craft activity.

That's My Dad (by Ralph Steadman, Andersen Press; ISBN: 1842700111)

This book takes a closer look at parts of the body: eyes, nose, ears, legs, (elephant's) trunk, tail and whiskers. Very simple and they love it!

Here are some activities I did with this book:

• All Change
  Kids each get a cardboard body part to hold - legs, arms, heads, tails, 2 or more of each (I cut these roughly out of an old cardboard box). They sit in a circle, preferably on chairs.
  When I say "arms change" all the kids who are holding cardboard arms get up and find a new chair. When I say "heads change" all the kids holding heads get up and find a new place to seat. Do the same for legs, tails and anything else you've included.
  When I say "monsters change" all the kids get up and find a new place.
  
  
• Monster picture dictation/consequences (inspired by Genki Kids http://genkienglish.net/monster.htm)
  Each kid draws a Monster body. They then pass it on to the next kid. Some kids were worried about this "hey that's my picture", so warn them first that the pictures will be done by everyone. I get each kid to draw a leg on their new monster picture and pass it on to the next kid. Carry on in the same way for arms, heads, tails as many as you think appropriate for a monster. Then you can get the kids to pass the picture back to the kid who drew the body who can add finishing touches, background and colour in as appropriate or as time allows.
  
  

Dinosaur Day (by Liza Donnelly, Scholastic Paperbacks; ISBN: 0590418009)

This book is about a kid who thinks there might be a dinosaur lurking under every pile of snow in his street. They turn out to be a car, a bike, a motorbike and a rubbish bin. I used it for introducing transport vocab.

Here are some activities I did based around the transport theme. I wanted to teach transport vocabulary, but of course you could make a lot more of the dinosaur theme:

• The Wheels on the Bus song. I used a Wheels on the Bus book by Annie Kubler, (Child's Play (International) Ltd; ISBN: 0859537978) The smaller kids particularly liked being able to put their fingers into the holes in the book.
  
  
  
• Make a paper helicopter. It's so easy and such fun. Let them stand on the table to drop it and watch it twirl.
  
  
• Make a jet plane (I tried this with 7 and 8 year-olds, it's quite teacher-intensive so get a parent or an older kid to be your assistant)
  Each kid gets a paper lunch bag to decorate as a plane (cockpit at the front on top and windows along each side. They draw round a template and cut out wings (use stiff paper) which they stick on the top of the bag. They get a short length of drinking straw to stick on top of the wings. They thread a string through it which they tie across the room. They each get a balloon which they stick inside their bags, nozzle pointing outward, using double-sided tape.
  
  Keeping the balloon inside the bag, blow it up a bit and watch your jet whizz along the string.
  
  This idea is from an out of print book: "Make it yourself" published by the Shooting Star Press.
  
  

The Tiger Who Came to Tea
(by Judith Kerr and Geraldine McEwan, Picture Lions, ISBN 0001006789)

This book has an unlikely guest coming to tea with an ordinary family about 40 years ago. Still lots of fun despite the traditional roles. The tiger doesn't eat the kid but scoffs all her food and looks round for some more. This book provides lots of food vocabulary as well as polite ways of offering food and an insight into British culture.

Here are some activities I did with this book:

• We had a tea party which gave us the opportunity to do lots of role playing, reviewing the structures from the book as well as learning the verbs "to spread" and "to butter".
  
  • I got the kids to make sandwiches (I brought in some sliced bread, butter and jam),
    
  • I baked some scones (half a mini scone per kid),
    
  • I brought a teapot, cup and saucer and a flask of tea for myself,
    
  • I got a parent to bring soft drinks for the kids
    
  
  
• We made tiger masks (face vocabulary).
  I prepared a tiger-shaped template, brought thick black paper, orange and white finger paint and some scraps of pink paper for the nose.
  
  • Kids draw round the template (I pre-cut paper to about the right size to avoid wasting paper and time),
    
  • They cut out their tiger head with holes for eyes and nose (I make or start the holes for little ones)
    
  • Kids stick a scrap of pink paper behind nose hole to give a pink nose
    
  • White finger paint. I tell kids to put it on the tiger's chin, around its eyes and some stripes on the face and around the ears.
    
  • When everyone has finished with the white, I take the white away and bring out the orange finger paint. I tell kids to put a long stripe from between the eyes right down to the nose, then to add orange around the cheeks and forehead.
  

Snap! Snap! (by Colin and Jacqui Hawkins, Picture Lions, ISBN 0-00-662573-8)

This book is about an assertive little girl and some monsters. The pictures are clear, the story gripping, and there's not much text. There is playground vocabulary, a girl, teddy bear, monsters. Monster themes are great for teaching parts of the body. Kids under 4 may find it scary. I used this book as a first lesson with several groups.

Here are some of the activities I did with this book

• Make a monster picture:
  1. I prepare cardboard templates for a monster head and body, a teddy bear template, and a dress template.
  2. The kids draw round templates and cut out shapes in coloured paper which they stick on to their background page.
  3. They use colouring pens to add arms and legs, teeth and eyes to the monster, a head, hands and feet for the little girl and eyes, nose and mouth to the teddy.
  (This provides a natural opportunity for lots of repetition of the body vocabulary)
  
  
  
• The Hokey Kokey action song with some slight modifications (shown in capitals below):
  
  You put your left foot in, your left foot out,
  in, out, in, out, you shake it all about,
  you do the SCARY MONSTERS and you turn around,
  that's what it's all about.
  
  BIG GREEN HAIRY MONSTERS,
  BIG GREEN HAIRY MONSTERS,
  BIG GREEN HAIRY MONSTERS,
  JUMP UP, TURN AROUND, GO TO SLEEP
  
  
• Miming playground activities: Make a flashcard each for see-saw, slide and swing. Position them around the room. I shout "see-saw" and the kids run to the see-saw area, sit on the floor in pairs and mime see-sawing while we recite "see-saw, monsters galore, see-saw, fall on the floor" (a shortened line from the book) at which point we all roll on to the floor to a lot of giggles. We do something similar for slide and swing with lots of action, sound effects and giggles.