Social Skills

Bedford, David. (2001). It's My Turn. New York, New York: Scholastic Inc.

ISBN 0-439-31413-5

This book is about two friends, Oscar the dog and Tilly the cat who found a playground together but would not let one another have a turn. Tilly would not let Oscar have a turn on the slide, the jungle gym, or the merry-go-round. Then Tilly got too dizzy on the merry-go-round, Oscar finally gets his chance to play and he decided to take revenge by having Tilly wait for her turns. Then when they came across a see-saw, as they were fighting who gets to go first, they found out it's actually more fun if they play together.

This is a great book to talk about sharing with 3-5 because the situations in the book can be very easily related to for the 3-5 years old. Things like that happens all the time in their lives; at school or at home, there is always someone complaining the other person is not sharing, and so, telling this story can help them learn, sometimes, it's much more fun to share and play together. Also I think it’s also important to learn how to listen to one another. Often children do not understand that sometime, others also have the same needs as they do and if someone is not sharing a toy it could be just simply because that other person is not done with using the toy yet. I think when teaching children sharing is a nice thing to do, listening and understanding other people’s needs are also very important.

The illustrations are vibrant, simple and colorful. The pictures are big and have an exciting feel.

Provocations:

Put up a picture of Tilly and Oscar together at the playground with Tilly on a swing and Oscar standing next to Tilly look sad. The next day, have the same picture out again but this time Tilly and Oscar switch spots.

Another way to provoke this story is to obverse children as they play together during free play time, and if there is a day when a similar situation as the one Tilly and Oscar happened at your centre, take that opportunity to use the story to teach them how to solve the problem of not sharing toys/play area.

Presentation:

1) Audience Participation – let the children act out the two characters playing in the playground and tell the story through them acting like playing in the playground. It will be more effective, I think, if you have those who are having the problem sharing earlier the day to act in the story, in this way, they would be able to relate to the story more easily.

2) Puppet – bring in a cat and a dog stuffed animal and have a puppet show. The story then does not necessarily need to be based in a playground; you could use any setting you could come up with.

3) Chunking the book – stop and pause at places in the book and ask children what do they think the character’s feeling would be when their friend kept saying no and would not let them have a turn?

Extension:

1) Involve children into implementing a plan in which they could use to help them share or express their needs. For example, ask them what should they do if they needed something other is using? Ask them other than themselves, what should they consider? Do they need to listen to the other person? (For example: in our centre, we have a sign-up board for LEGO after a few too many complains about people not sharing. On the sign up board, there are only a number of slots for people who want to play to sign-up and a waiting list area for those who are waiting to play next. When children sign up to play LEGO, a teacher will then come to add a clock besides his/her name so the child would know when he/she is expected to leave the LEGO and let others to have their turns.)

2) Take the children to play at the playground to have a fun day. As they are playing if situations like the ones in the story appear, remind them of the story they’ve just read in class and ask what should they do?

3) Build a playground with the students with blocks. Get everyone in the class to get involve into the project and have everyone pitch in some suggestions. This is a good activity to promote team work.