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| Laurie Dabney |
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Reply with quote | #1 |
Using Children’s Lit to Support Social-Emotional Development
Lobel, Arnold (1970). Frog and Toad are Friends: The lost button. New York: Barnes and Noble Publishing, Inc.
The Frog and Toad are Friends Books are intended for children between 4 and 8 years old, and thus would be appropriate in many preschool classrooms, as well as kindergarten and first grade. I love this series of books because from the beginning kids fall in love with Frog and Toad and the stories of their friendship. The stories often involve some sort of tension of conflict that is resolved through appropriate means, so not only are they fun, but they also teach children how to be good friends to one another. In using the story The Lost Button, several skills could be targeted, specifically skills related to developing and maintaining friendships. These include helping friends when they are in need, being a helpful member of a community, and doing nice things for our friends when they have been nice to us. All of these skills are related to building a community, so this book could fit into a yearlong theme of being a classroom family, or being part of the classroom or school community. There are many expansion activities that could be used to take this book further, as well. For example:
• In this story, Toad loses his button after he and Frog have gone on a long walk. Toad is concerned, and Frog’s immediate response is to suggest that together, they go look for the button in all of the places they have been. As a follow up activity, have the teacher or an aid bring a vest or jacket that is missing a button. (It is a good idea to use large buttons so they are safe.) Prior to the activity, hide buttons around the classroom or playground and pose the problem: “Oh no! I too have lost a button! What should we do?” Let the children brainstorm ideas, and use the book as the reference. Let the children search the classroom where they will find all sorts of buttons until they find the one that matches. Talk about the way the students helped you fix your jacket.
• As a follow up to this activity, let the children make jackets (cut a jacket out of colored paper, or outline on a larger piece) and paste buttons all over it, like the jacket Toad makes in the book for Frog. From the beginning, help the children think of someone they would like to make the jacket for, perhaps a parent, sibling or friend, who has done something nice for them. Offer to write “thank you _______ for ______” on their art project.
• Another possible activity is to make felt figures of Frog, Toad, and the other animals in the story. Toad’s jacket would be missing a button. Collect buttons that match the descriptions of the other buttons in the book, or create them out of felt. Hand these pieces out to the children, and read the book interactively with the children, allowing them to be the animals who offer the different buttons to try and help Toad. After it is over, talk about the way the animals work together to help Toad and Frog, and ask children to share a time when they were helpful to their friends, or when someone was helpful to them. Talk about how this is an important part of being a family/ community.
If I were to change anything about this book, I would add actual dialogue between Frog and Toad that would serve as an example of actual words that friends can use with each other to help or to express gratitude to someone else who has been helpful.
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