Customer Reviews

Story S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-r-s: Activities to Expand Children's Favorite Books (Pre-K and K)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Organized around eighteen themes, with five books featured for each, this resource is a valuable aid primarily geared toward the classroom teacher or daycare worker rather than a parent. With a nice selection of 90 well-regarded books, each is devoted two pages and features a picture of the book's cover, a short description of the content, Circle Time presentation ideas, five story stretchers well marked in bold (Art, Snack Time, Math, Music, Science and Nature Center, Library Corner, etc.) with a learning objective, materials list, and instructions. At the end of each chapter are the complete citations for the five featured books as well as a list of additional books related to the theme.

An example of the content: the first theme is Families, and the five featured books are 'A Baby Sister for Frances', 'Me Too!', 'Whose Mouse Are You?', 'Five Minutes' Peace', and 'Titch'. For 'Titch', story stretcher activities are: decorating t-shirts; listening to a tape of the story and turning the pages; counting to three; watching plants grow; making a pinwheel. Other themes include Friendship, Feelings, Colors, Counting, and Transportation.

As someone interested in homeschooling one child, I found that quite a few of these activities were inappropriate for me, but some were adaptable and others were as applicable to one child as to many.

An appendix instructs one in binding a book, constructing a rebus chart and making art dough. Separate indices list authors and illustrators; book titles (both featured and recommended); activities organized by type; and terms (objects, concepts and techniques used in the activities).

Strengths: nice book selection; well-organized and presented.

Weaknesses: activities are not consistently relevant or creative; no information is given about appropriate age or reading levels for the books or activities.

Overall, I would say this is a valuable resource, particularly if you are working with a group of children and don't have the time or the knack for coming up with ideas of your own to expand on reading material.

Story stretchers help prolong children's favorite books by offering many activities that correspond with each story. The stories are grouped by theme, so it is easy to find books for your weekly theme. Not only are there featured books for each theme, but the authors have listed other books that will work with your theme, too. Story stretchers makes it easy to turn one short story into a whole days worth of fun activities that incorporate all curriculum areas (math, art, music & movement, etc.).

I was introduced to this book in a Preschool Literature Class I'm taking. A friend has one...and I had to buy it too! There are lots of great ideas in all curriculum areas all based on a book. And several books fit under one theme or topic. What a wonderful resource for teachers who like to teach from literature!

My four-year-old son loves reading the stories reccommended in Story S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-r-s. He begs to do the activities and remembers well the lessons he learns by doing. A great resource for home schooling a K4 or K5 student.

I am not overly impressed with this book. Still, it has it's place in the preschool classroom (mainly for the art ideas). I would not consider all of these books "favorites"- although a good many of them are.

A creative teacher with a bit of time and research could come up with most of these ideas on their own (save for some of the art project ideas). For example: serving canned chicken soup and rice to go along with Sendak's classic story "Chicken Soup with Rice". Not a whole lot of novelty there.

If you would like to have a pre-organized curriculum set up in front of you with a few new, good ideas, then this may be a good choice for you. Otherwise, skip this one.

I was excited by the idea of this book, and hoping to share my love of reading with the preschool children I teach. But in the end I found the book a huge disappointment. The good thing is that there is a whole range of books included, however the book is quiet outdated and some of the books are no longer in print. But worse than that was just the lack of ideas for each book. The use of a flannel boards on about every other book mentioned was annoying...gee, I never thought of that. Also many of the ideas for each book were for "stations" set up in your room, that my school doesn't have the space or money for; sand/water tables, dress up corners and recording stations with cassette players and headphones (when was the last time you saw a cassette player?) The same ideas are used for nearly every book. I can't recommend spending your own money on it, but if it's in your library it might be worth a borrow.

This was one of the books that I displayed in a Storytelling workshop that I did. I also shared it with my preschool teachers. Great reference book!
Thanks!