Cumulative and Circular 2

Tummy Girl


Thong, R. (2007). Tummy Girl. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.

ISBN#: 0-8050-7609-3

Summary:

This is a circular book that tells a story about a little girl when she is first born and goes on to describe all the different activities she does as she grows up; like crawling, walking, hiding, feeding, climbing, dancing and singing. As the little girl gets bigger and the book is coming to an end the author brings the book back around to the beginning by writing, “And though you’ll grow up and whirl...You’ll always be my Tummy Girl!” (Thong, 2007).

I think this book would be good for three to five year olds because they are experiencing new activities and becoming able to physically do new things, just like Tummy Girl. I also think the children would like this book because of the vocabulary that is used, for example, “A nice-big spoonful-munching girl, A drippy, milky, crunching girl,...”(Thong, 2007), they’re fun words the children would enjoy reading out loud with me. The illustrations are very bright and eye catching; the author drew colour pictures then outlined and shaded them with black charcoal.

To provoke this book I would set out three or four different sized dolls that look similar in a row on a table that start with a crawling baby and go to a walking child.

To present the book:

The first way I could do it is to read it to them with the dolls that I have put out, placing the smallest doll in front of me or holding it as I begin the story and slowly exchange the dolls as the little girl grows up.

The second way I could present the book would be to use a felt board. I could either make the pieces or hopefully find a store that could provide me with at least some of the parts.

The third way I could present it would be to get the children to act it out. I would use costumes that look similar to the clothes the little girl is wearing and have the children act as she does throughout the book.

There are a few places I would stop and wonder with the children. On page 15, 16 I would say, “ I wonder how high she can swing? How high can you swing boys and girls?”. Also on page 19, 20 I would say, “If I had a tree house it would be so big I could fit an elephant in it, how would your tree house look?”

Extensions:

I would use the last wonder to explore an extension about tree houses. We could draw our perfect tree house or use colourful Popsicle sticks to build our own miniature tree houses.

Another extension could be to trace all the children on white paper with their names on each outline and a solid line where the top of their head is. I would put the outlines on a wall touching the floor. Every week or two we could come back to the outlines to see if and how much they have grown and mark it on the paper. The children could also do this as often as they like as well.

One more extension would be to get the children to make their own book by drawing pictures of growing up. I would ask them questions like, “what did you like to eat when you were a baby?” , “How did you crawl or walk when you where little?”, “Did you ever go to the beach or splash in puddles?”, “What does it look like when you swing?”All of these questions are activities Tummy Girl did in the book. We could do a book for each child or make one big collaborative book for the whole class.