Citation
Demas, D. (2008). Valentine surprise. United States of America: Walker.
As it says in the book:
ISBN-10: 0-8027-9664-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-8027-9664-6
Description
The book Valentine Surprise is a story about little girl-Lily- who wants to make a perfect valentine for her mother and starts to prepare it a week before Valentine’s Day. Although she tries hard to create a beautiful craft, she cannot make it and gets upset. On Valentine’s Day, Lily gets an idea! What is she going to do in last day?
I have chosen this book for story time because of several reasons.
1) It is a seasonal book and great for story time or craft activity in February.
2) There are three main concepts: Valentine’s Day as special day, introducing new words we use as adjectives like skinny, fat or curvy and introducing days of the week.
3) Short sentences and nice and bright illustrations.
4) If Lily fails on her idea, it is just OK not to be perfect because her mother loves her forever for what Lily is from inside, her kindness and uniqueness.
I believe it is one of the best choices for 3-5 years old, as preschoolers start to understand the concept of 7 days as one week and each day has a specific name, the sequence of days as well as meaning of new words as adjectives like round or pointy. Moreover, they are more interested in hand-made craft as gift to beloved ones, as Lily does for valentine day.
Illustration
Coloring (Pencil, gouache and water color).One of the reasons I was drawn to this book was the picture of book’s cover. Lily is hiding behind wall as she has a peek and holds something in her hands. It makes me curious what is she going to do and what is happening in the book.
Illustrations are placed in white pages that draw my attention as I like this style of illustration with blank background.
These pictures provoke children to follow the book to the end as illustrations are not busy. The base is white and some illustration is placed in different parts of page that makes it interesting. Children can make a connection with Lily’s feeling such as happiness, excitement or concern. Even the font of words is creative enough to draw reader’s attention; for example, the font of word “heart” as skinny is really skinny or “fat heart” is really fat. Children enjoy watching beautiful drawings in the book as these pictures are simple but elegance and interesting. The whole page is white and some corners are colorful with watercolor and crayons that make the picture soft to look at. Beside Lily as main character, I have noticed there are some other characters (two kittens) in each page that have a connection to the story somehow. However, they are engaged with Lily in making home-made present differently. Personally, I enjoy reading story in story type because it requires more attention to find out what is going on in details.
Provocation
One of the ways to provoke children interest and curiosity is to look at the story by introducing the differences in the shapes of heart. One day before Valentine’s Day and story telling, we can print out and cut different heart shapes in a large amount and place them in the different corner of center like shelves, between toys, on chairs, cubbies, book corner or under table before children start the day. We can tell them that we lost some heart shape pieces and if some one finds it, put it on felt board. In fact, we should follow them by close observation in their conversation about how different each heart looks like. We should allow them to see and touch each heart piece in order to make a connection between what they see now (activity) and what they learn tomorrow (story). For example, if we give children an opportunity to see pointy heart shape by eyes and touch the point edge of heart by finger or compare it by curvy one, they understand the word of pointy quickly as we read the story tomorrow.
Four ways of presenting a book
1) Story basket
2) Felt board
3) Children participation
4) TV Screen
Story basket
Material: 2 dolls as mom and girl, 7 different shapes of heart (stuffed or laminated) and 7 laminated cards representing seven days of week.
I totally agree with what Susan Munzer-Briner mentions about benefits of covered basket to children in her book “you usually have the children’s full attention. Everyone is glued to what is happening.” (Learn to Play-Play to Learn, P 54) It would be easier to pick up items one by one from basket each time as we tell the story if we place the items in sequence of needs. I’d like to start and finish the story by saying “once upon a time” and “the end” so children have an image in their head about beginning and the end of story. We can use the cover of basket as stage of story. While we start telling story, we bring out items like the days of week and stuffed heart in right sequence according to the story. By the end of story, stage should be divided to seven section represent seven days of week.
More over, it would be interesting to put the basket in the shelf couple days later as children become excited to see the basket, play with material and make their own story.
While I present the story, I wonder and pause in some parts of story such as Lily’s new idea and how to solve the problem.
Felt Board
Materials: felt board, felt pieces (includes1 girl, 1mother, 1 bed and blanket, 1 scissor, 7 heart shapes, 1 calendar of weekdays, sun and moon)
I am a big fan of felt board as one of the most interesting way to represent the story, because children have a wonderful opportunity to see, touch and hold in their hands the characters of story. By making felt board and pieces available for everyone in free play, children have opportunity to expand their imagination and share it with friends; therefore, it assists their cognitive developments as well as social skills such as communication and cooperation.
Making a calendar by fabric and name each day of week on it was fun part of preparing felt pieces. I also add some extra pieces such as sun and moon with star in order to show children how long one day is with sun and moon in semicircle. As I tell story “sun comes up and it’s morning (I show Monday card)….Lily tries to cut out a nice shape of heart, but she couldn’t….she was tired, so she goes to bed (I show moon with star….), next day I show sun is up (now Tuesday card) and so on…..
Children Participation
Materials: 2 headbands as Lily and Mother, Days of week (7 cards), 7 shapes of heart, a string and some cloth pin.
One of the ways to present the book is acting the story by children. It has a positive influence on child’s cognitive development, communication and social skills as they have an active interaction with peers and are engaged with story in details. It is required children to listen carefully and cooperate in order to act properly regarding to the sequence of story. Two children play roles of Lily and Mother. Seven children play a role as seven days of week and seven other children become different hearts. When I start to tell a story, children act their roles as they hear. At the beginning children as days of week stand in sequence and wait for Lily to join them one by one. For example, while I say “On Thursday (I point at child with Thursday tag) Lily (child as Lily goes to Thursday child) makes a forth valentine, but it is too curvy (and child as curvy goes to Thursday and stands with lily. Lily moves forward to next day and so on. The other way is each child (each day of week) joins to Lily and stand beside previous day as I tell story. By the end of story, there are 7 children standing as 7 days that make one week. As Lily got an idea, children as heart comes together and use pin cloth to attach it on string and make a perfect present for Mom.
TV Screen
Material for making TV screen: Cradboard box, cardboard tube, long paper, scissors, tape and print out pictures from book.
How to make a TV screen:
I prefer to tell the story in my words and use the TV screen at the same time. It is a wonderful experience to see children’s reaction to the story as something moveable in the box and they look forward to see what will happen and what is coming in the next scene. I like TV screen as something new for telling a story because child as same as I likes to make his/her own TV screen and makes up own story and then draw it on the paper. I had a same experience to make my own story in TV screen when I was a child. I remember my audience such as my parents, siblings and friends enjoyed watching the story in different way. I can use different papers for different story and I am still eligible to use drawing and coloring, print pictures or calendar photos as background. It depends on story and creativity.
Wonders
v I wonder what Lily wants to make.
v She runs out of colorful papers and has not finished her work yet. I wonder how she feels now. I prefer not to say her feeling and wonders how my feeling and children feeling would be.
v
v I wonder what I should do if I was in her situation.
v I wonder what she is going to do as it is almost a valentine day. What is her idea?
v I wonder what children decide to do if they face a same situation.
v I wonder what is her mother feeling and reaction when Lily says “I tried to make you a valentine but it did not turn out right”.
v I wonder by the end of story how Lily’s feeling?
Extension
1) Song for days of week :
* Sunday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday, Friday, Saturday (2)
Each day, I sing a song related to that day.
* Today is Monday (2) that’s what it is today
Today is Monday (2) that’s what it is today
Moooooooooonday!!!!!
2) Craft of valentine in February.
Materials: construction paper, scissors, crayons and the storybook on the table.
I believe the book itself is completely a provocation for children. So, I just leave the book on the table and some papers and scissors. Hopefully, some of them might start drawing a heart and cut it out. They might start to compare and see the differences or similarity between hearts they make. Sometimes, some children are more interested to drawing and coloring different shapes of heart like small, big, skinny or chubby one.
3) Craft
Cut the whole seven shapes of heart out of foam (pointy, round, square, curvy, skinny and fat) and leave them on the table with crayons and papers. Those hearts should be made of foam as the idea is to provide an opportunity for children to get familiar with the concept of some words used as adjectives such as pointy, skinny or square by allowing children to observe, touch, hold and trace the hearts on the papers.
4) Non-fiction book
One of the concepts of book is introducing days of week to children. It would be a good idea if I use non-fiction book as extension. The book I chose called Talking about time: days of the week by Jilly Attwood. The book is about different activities children do each day of week and at the last page of this book, each name of days come in a sequence and show the order in clock turn.
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