Book Activities
You’ll find various ideas for storytelling and writing throughout my web site. Below you’ll find a few more ideas to use especially after reading some of my picture books with your students or children...
Simple Wonders
This book is full of toys to make. Paramasivam, who made the toys first, combined his memories of growing up in India with his creative hands in the U.S. Make a few toys, then encourage your students to create their own. Gather a variety of scrap materials: wire and foam, old paper, straws, cloth pieces, sticks, and more. Have children experiment and play as they try new toys. They can sketch their best designs to put on the walls or to offer to a local day care staff! Share more about Paramasivam through his introduction.
Nine-in-One,Grr!Grr!
Have students create their own story cloths after reading the book. The illustrator, Nancy Hom, shares a feeling of these beautiful Hmong cloths in her illustrations. Show the book, then share more examples from www.quiltethnic.com. Next have students, alone or in partners, choose a tale to tell. Distribute large pieces of mural paper and bits of construction paper. Ask students to cut out images of the story’s characters and setting to glue on the big paper. If possible, a nice geometric border can be added to finish each cloth. Finally, they go on the wall to be admired and used as settings while the stories are told.
Judge Rabbit and
the Tree Spirit
Judge Rabbit Helps the Fish
Judge Rabbit is a wonderful trickster from Cambodia. He tricks humans and bigger animals, but he also helps them at times. He is a judge when needed, and his wit often saves the day for the less fortunate. A great project around either of these books would be to create more stories about this trickster figure. Have students research a little about Cambodia, if you want to place him in his homeland. But Cambodians are now found elsewhere in the world, as a result of the tragic war there. So Judge Rabbit could trick someone somewhere else. For further inspiration, share Judge Rabbit and Tiger.
Oni Wa Soto
Yoshi Miyake, the illustrator, did a wonderful job of weaving Japanese characters and sound words into the pictures. If you’d like, copy the characters for the main words in story. Have children try to make their own copies of the characters. You can also experiment with Japanese and other sound words at Asian Wordplay. Or, try to copy the chain form of this tale, which builds and builds. Encourage students to create their own story based on the model. They can stay with the eating theme, or branch out to variations with other linking activities. They can gather more examples from rhymes (This is the House that Jack Built), folk tales, and modern picture books.
Thao Kham
Feel free to use this story to change talkative behavior in your class! A third grade teacher said that after I shared it in her class, whenever someone dominated conversation, she just muttered, “Now where did I put those mudballs?” And suddenly there was silence! For a fun art project, give each student a big piece of green paper. Let them cut a large leaf out and then make holes in leaves just as Thao did, to create shapes of animals. For a stunning wall display, hang leaves bunched on top of a big brown paper trunk (students can write their names on trunk, too).
Kantjil and Tiger
Use this as an introduction to Indonesia or Malaysia, where Kantjil (or Kancil in the latest version of Malay) is a most popular trickster. He is another fine character to use in creative writing. You could have Judge Rabbit meet Kancil, too. As a great way to have students illustrate images from this story, introduce the splendid shadow puppets of Indonesia (see www.balibeyond.com for background). Younger students can make shadow puppets by using a hole punch on a small cutout animal shape, while older students can use embroidery needles carefully to make designs that light will shine through.
The Greedy Crows
This lushly illustrated tale can serve as an introduction to India. In For Librarians you’ll find a variety of Indian-based activities, like ideas for making kolams (shown on left and found in book). Students can also use the theme of kind/greedy found in the story to compare folk tales around the world; it is a very popular theme. Older students can use newspaper accounts to present true stories of the same theme.
Priya’s Day
This fanciful account of a girl’s day also shares true parts of a village Indian lifestyle. Ideas from For Librarians could also be used here to further explore this life. Of course, the most exciting follow-up is to have children make up their own paper stories. This project works well if students work in twos or threes, helping each other. Introduce the idea by tearing a paper slowly into odd shapes (don’t try to make anything, just tear) in front of the class. Ask what each shape might look like, accept all ideas. If possible, then tell a paper story yourself. Finally, give students recycled paper and have them tear and imagine. When they have several good ideas, they can try weaving them into very short, simple stories. Let them practice tales and tears several times, then share with class.
