I am back with a new #mtnwildstorytime! This week we read through Red Sled by Lita Judge because we are right smack in the middle of Winter here in NW Montana. This gorgeously illustrated picture book is about a group of woodland animals that borrow a child’s sled to go on an evening joy ride. The only words in this picture book are sound effects, which are fun to read and go perfectly with the illustrations. Since there is not much reading that goes with this book, I thought this was a perfect opportunity to work through some story elements and get some simple writing prompts going. A book with few words is a perfect opportunity for young writers to jot down their own and try to expand their vocabulary. I have been told to create the things that don’t exist, so I decided to create this 6 page Red Sled Storytime Printable Worksheet Bundle!
This could be worked through over a week or you can just pick and choose which worksheets to do with your kiddos. You could make this into a mini unit if you wanted to! In addition to the worksheets, you could have your child paint a watercolor painting scene from the book. You could talk about which animals in the book may hibernate in the Winter or not. Or which of those animals are nocturnal. Ask your child to count the foot steps in the snow on pages 6 and 7 (“scrunch scrinch scrunch”) Challenge your kiddos to make a small log cabin like in the book! They could make it out of cardboard, pretzels, or lincoln logs. For younger readers, creating a snow sensory bin with some small woodland toy animals and a red sled would be a very fun and engaging activity. Storytime can be as elaborate or as simple as you want it to be each week, just as long as you are reading with your kiddos!
If you are new to my #mtnwildstorytime series, welcome! Each week (with occasional breaks here and there) I share a children’s picture book with a coordinating activity, snack, or craft. I started this series almost a year ago in hopes to inspire parents to get their children to fall in love with reading. My son is not a natural book-lover. It takes a bit of extra planning to get my son excited to read or write. But if there is an engaging craft or a yummy snack to go along with the book- he is all in! This week I told him that if he did his worksheets, we would go sledding at the end of the week. He was pretty motivated! Our weekly storytime is very special to us and we really look forward to it each week. Though we read about a dozen books every week, this one storytime that is planned and intentional is really a special time my son and I share. The books we read are usually seasonal or follow upcoming holidays, making it a fun way to celebrate and get festive!
I hope you stick around for another great year of Mountain Wild Story Time ideas! Be sure to follow me over on Instagram where I share the majority of our story time ideas. If you are interested in any of the books I have mentioned, make sure you check out my Amazon Store with all the books used in #mtnwildstorytime.
In this bundle there are 6 worksheets that briefly cover all the elements of a story, encourage children to get imaginative with their descriptive words to narrate the setting, and a few simple questions to get conversation about the book going and can be simple writing prompts for beginner writers. Think of this like a creative book report for younger kiddos. I also just introduced the Thesaurus to my son (he is about to be 8) and though he still hasn’t quite figured out how to navigate through the book, he likes the idea of using it for reference when trying to think of good descriptive words. He called it his “cheat book”. Encourage your child to use less common descriptive words. Instead of writing “the snow was white and smooth” they could write “the snow was pure white and … “calm” or “still” or “silky” etc. It’s never too early to encourage your children to be great story-tellers. And I think that all great story-tellers never leave out the details. They paint a picture in the listener/readers mind.
Storytime tip: If a picture book is fairly short, I will read it aloud or have him read it to me, then I will close the book and ask my son to re-tell the story in his own words. You’ll be surprised on how much detail they can remember! This is really great practice for story-telling and encouraging those descriptive words.
Get your FREE printables HERE.
I hope you enjoy this Red Sled Storytime Printable Worksheet Bundle and can spend a few minutes each week reading as a family!
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