New Use for an Old Favorite Story

This week's project, damaged book turned literary art work. 

Last week I mentioned that I have been reading We're Going on a Bear Hunt with my new class of two and three year olds. The kids love this book right now and each time I read it with them I look for new ways to create fun learning experiences for the classroom inspired by the story and its illustrations. I just love how a good story can weave its way throughout your life and so likewise I always try to have one classic story as the backbone of my preschool curriculum, the place from which so many projects, games, conversations and learning opportunities of all kinds emerge. Right now, this is the story on which I am building. This story is so well loved that it's pages were literally starting to fall apart from so much wear. This weekend I retired it and replaced it with the board book version we had in our school's collection. Despite it's sad condition, I couldn't bear to part with our beloved book so I decided, instead, to celebrate it by reconstructing the pages of the story into a piece of art to display in the library corner of our classroom.

found at this lovely blog

I can't take credit for this art project because like many ideas for my classrooms over the years, it was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest. Now that I am just about full time now in my new room at the school in Maine where I have been employed since we arrived in Portland back in September, I have been going back through many of the DIY Pins I have collected this year looking for inspiration. I stumbled upon this neat Cat in the Hat story art piece and immediately thought of the bear hunt book I knew was on its last days in the classroom. I don't have a canvas yet and I am not replicating it exactly, but what you see above is my progress as of last night. Hopefully by the end of the week I can report back with the final product and let you know what my kiddos think of it once I display it above the books in the story corner of our classroom. My hope is that not only will the story board draw attention to this part of the classroom, but it will also serve as a visual reminder of the children's favorite story. They love "reading" the story to me, using the illustrations to trigger their memory of the words which many have memorized almost entirely. This activity not only helps the kiddos to develop some important literary skills, like story telling, sequential ordering of events, vocabulary building, and word recall, it also serves as a way to connect with the story on a deeper level, to see the illustrations as the works of art that they are, and it helps document for the parents what we've been up to and what we are currently interested in as a class. Not to mention, it likely gives the parents a visual for a story they've likely heard all about.

Blocks found in this Etsy shop

In addition to all the literacy benefits of creating story art like this one, I believe that re-purposing something that could have easily ended up in the recycle bin provides the kids with a valuable lesson on DIY and creativity. If you've read any of my previous posts, you've probably gathered that I have quite an interest in creating handmade materials for the children in my lives. I'm hoping I have enough pictures left over from my story board project that I can attempt to put together a story block set like the one pictured on the left I stumbled across while browsing on Etsy one day. I'd love to get as much use out of our bear hunt book as possible and offer the kids as many ways as I can to dig deeper into one of their favorite stories. My interest in DIY is not simply a way to fulfill my need to create, but I love to use it as a way to inspire children and show them what they too can be capable of, which is why whenever possible I like to work on my projects either with the help of the children, or while in the classroom with them so that my projects serve as a provocation for them. In the past this has led to kids in my preschool class back in Seattle making their own books by stapling paper together and filling in the pages and learning to master the art of crown making for their dramatic play, and even creating origami critters that became the key characters in their small world play. When it comes to developing self-sufficiency and DIY skills, there is no better way to teach than by example and so I do my best to fill my classroom spaces with as many handmade items as I can, assuming the quality of my work is up to par with the rest of the materials in the classroom, which isn't always the case. But then again, moving on from failure and trying again is just as valuable a lesson and one which I am happy to pass on. Not all my projects meet the aesthetic qualifications for my classrooms but that will never stop me from continuing to work.