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IDEAS AND ACTIVITIES

SPECIAL READING IDEAS

David, Horno, Mormor and the Yak: An Alphabet Mystery is designed to be read to a young child many, many times. The book can be read simply as a story about David and his puzzle the first few times, pointing out things on each page. You can ask the child what an object on a page is, ask what the child sees on each page, and discuss such questions as:

Where is David in this picture?

What is David doing?

Who is David with? and finally ...

What do YOU think happened to the Yak?

Later readings can then focus on the significance and meanings of the animals and letters at the bottom of the page as well as the story. Below are a number of ideas for having fun with the animals and letters!

FUN WITH THE ANIMALS

A good place to start is with the animals, recognizing that conversations will vary with the age and sophistication of the child. Side discussions about each animal are fun, talking about such things as:

-- where it lives, what it eats,

-- what noises it makes,

-- how it moves,

-- the number of babies it has,

-- what a group of that particular animal is called,

-- what their babies are called, and

-- its relation to the other animals on the page, lead to hours of chatter as animals and baby animals tend to fascinate children.

Many children, like David, may then want to go on and make up stories with you about each animal, naming them, their children and telling you all about their full and active life.

Next, recognizing the letters on each animal becomes a source of pride for the children. Linking the letter in the animal with the picture in the book of the animal lays the ground work for reading. It helps with the realization that letters can have sounds and spell out real things; that letters are more than just stand alone picture to memorize. You can then cover the letter on the animal and see if by saying the name of the animal can help the child remember the sound and sight of the letter.

FUN WITH THE LETTERS

The letters in the animals at the bottom of the pages in the book are in alphabetical order. To help the child recognize this order you can:

1) read only the letters in the animals at the bottom of each page out loud together as you turn the pages pointing to each letter so that you read the letters as a continuing alphabet;

2) sing the alphabet song along with turning the pages and pointing out each animal/letter; and

3) you can then go to the picture of the full puzzle near the end of the book, show how the animals and letters all fit together, again sing the alphabet song pointing at each animal in the puzzle, and discuss where the missing "Y" (Yak) goes.

You can talk about and let the child try to help you answer a lot of questions such as:

-- why isn't the "X" an animal;

-- which animal/letters are vowels and are needed if you want to make a word;

-- do the notches in the animal pieces help the puzzle stay together; and

-- what simple words you can make using some of the animal/letters?

GET THE PUZZLE PIECES -- BUY THEM OR MAKE THEM

Buy Them -- One method of obtaining the puzzle pieces is to buy the puzzle. However, while this may give you pieces that are the most fun to play with, it may be expensive and difficult to purchase the puzzle in some locations at this time.

Make Them -- An exciting and positive alternative, that actually enables you to explore even more and different activities with your child, is to make cut out copies of some or all of the animal/letters. There are a number of ways you can do this with your child. Two suggested methods are:

Method A: You can:

1) take the book and sit down together,

2) trace the animal/letters with tracing paper,

3) color them in using magic markers, crayons, tempura or water color paints ,

4) glue them onto a styrofoam-board or card-board such as an old box, and 5) cut them out. OR...

Method B: If you have access to a home, office or copy center copy-machine, you can take your child and the book and together make copies of all of the animal/letters, and then follow steps 4) and 5) above.

PLAYING WITH ANIMAL/LETTERS

Many of the activities listed above under reading lend themselves to playing with the animal/letters. As described in David, Horno, Mormor and the Yak, playing with the animal/letters was a major pastime of David's. His Mormor sometimes joined in David's unstructured play, sometimes structured the play, but sometimes she just sat near by, watched and even took a few minutes to do a few chores.

Unstructured play usually deals only with the animals and not the letters and some of the ideas below are done more easily with actual wooden puzzle pieces than with cut outs. Unstructured play consisted of activities such as:

1) Standing the animals up and putting them in lines or groups.

2) Putting animals on each other's backs where you can make them fit and arranging them in groups.

3) Play acting with the animals having imaginary conversations, adventures or fights with each other.

4) Trying to put the puzzle together and stand it up as a whole.

Structured activities deal with both the animals and the letters. Ideas for such activities include such activities as:

1) Grouping the animals by the way they walk, swim or fly and discussing how they rest, where they sleep, what they eat, etc.

2) Grouping the animals by the places in the world where they live.

3) Making cut out homes for the animals that look like the place they might live.

4) Putting all of the animal/letters that are vowels in one place and consonants in another.

5) Arranging the animal/letters into words and discussing whether these animals could really live together.