Craft Lesson 8: A Typical Day!

Discussion:

Childhood can be a stressful period. Specifically, the first few years of school can be especially traumatic to many children. They are out of their environment, around new people, and have to deal with authority figures like teachers, nurses, counselors, and principals. In addition, it seems that they are constantly subjected to changes and new procedures on a daily basis. Sometimes, they are even presented with dilemmas that will stress them out and make them nauseous! Yet, children need to know that everyone goes through the same growing pains. The picture book, Baby Mouse: Our Hero by Jennifer and Matthew Holm is about a typical child's life. It is a wonderful book for detailing and illustrating the thought processes of a child through common daily life experiences. Of course, the main character is a mouse, but children can easily relate to Baby Mouse's experiences.

How to Teach It:

Children can have anxious moments when it comes to new experiences or even past experiences, especially if they were bad ones. In this lesson, we are simply trying to teach children that everyone has good and bad days. Simply put, it is part of the growing process. After introducing the topic, the teacher will begin reading the picture book, Baby Mouse: Our Hero. The book is chock full of witty and graphic illustrations. In addition, the book is in comic book form, so it may be necessary for the teacher to show the children the layout, so that they can better understand the reading format. It is easy to get bogged down with this book, if the teacher points out every detail in the illustrations. So, it is probably a helpful suggestion that the teacher only points out some of the key details. For instance, everyone can relate to the ringing alarm clock. We all know this experience. We do not want to get up! Of course, the highlight of this book is Baby Mouse's utter disdain for dodgeball. She had a bad experience with this game when she was "younger", and now she is petrified to find out that a dodgeball game will be a big part of her PE grade. Of course, in the end, Baby Mouse is the hero of the dodgeball game! This result proves that we can overcome our dilemmas with perseverance. After completing the book reading, the teacher can then have the children write a short story about an event that they dreaded, but in the end it was not such a bad experience after all, like going to the dentist!

Resource Materials:
Picture book, Baby Mouse: Our Hero, by Jennifer & Matthew Holm