Highlights High Five™ December 2007 Parent/Teacher Guide
The Cover
- Talk together about the cover. Could this really happen? Why not?
- Encourage the children to tell what they know about baking cookies.
- Help the children find the hidden H in the picture. (It's in the window.)
- You could count the capital H's (there are 4 if you count the one in the window and the one in the Web address). If you count all the h's (uppercase and lowercase), you'll find 12.
After talking about the cover, invite children to tell a story about these three creatures. Here are some questions that may help: What names will you give these characters? Why are they making cookies? What will they do with the cookies when they are done? What will the bird do?
Five Little Penguins (pages 6 to 9)
- After reading the story, talk together about what the baby penguins did. Encourage children to describe any experiences they have had sledding, skiing, tubing, or sliding.
- Reread the story and have the children use their fingers to show the decreasing number of baby penguins.
- Read again, encouraging children to chime in on the parts they remember.
This delightful variant of Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed invites rereading. Children will develop confidence in their ability to remember the sequence of events, and for shy children, chiming in on a choral reading can be a safe way to practice speaking in a group. Older children can use cubes or other objects to represent the penguins, and make up their own subtraction problems. For example, If two penguins take a spill, only three will be left standing.
Hand Shake (page 35)
- Begin by asking children to describe what they see in each picture.
- Read the rhyme with a strong rhythmic beat.
- When you repeat the rhyme, trying varying the speed with which you read each sentence.
- Encourage a child to be the "leader" as you and the group chimes in.
Action rhymes like this are very helpful for children learning English. The illustrations and text will help children learn the meaning of up, down, slow, fast, front and back. The rhythmic chanting of the refrain will help children develop confidence in their ability to speak some English words.
Have fun reading and rereading the rhyming, rhythmic stories in this month's Highlights High Five!