Go, Books, Go!

I Stink!

Page history last edited by stevene@... 3 mos ago

I Stink by Kate and Jim McCullan (2002)

Initially I was concerned I Stink! might be too long for the preschoolers, but it worked really well because it has so many opportunities for interaction. It has links to all 6 of the early lit skills:

Print Motivation : very interactive, having the kids blink their eyes like headlights, open up their mouths like the trash truck tailgate, and help make the ROAR sound, as well as the BURRRP! We've also practiced our "reverse" gear and the "back-up rap": Beep! Beep! Hey! Outta my way (please)!

Parent message: "Finding ways to act out the book helps with Narrative Skills, or telling a story, as well as Print Motivation, or just making books fun!"

Letter Knowledge : The section where the truck describes the "alphabet soup" of trash he ingests was great since the letters are in caps and different colors so the kids could recognize them and say them with me. We also "guessed" the trash that started with that letter, helping them make the connection between the letter and the sound it makes.

Parent message: "You can use almost any book that has words in it to work on Letter Knowledge - it doesn't have to be an ABC book!"

Narrative Skills : also using the "alphabet soup" section, decoding the pictures worked on their narrative skills.

Parent message: see above

Vocabulary: the book is filled with great words, like the parts of the vehicle, as well as action words like squeeze, crush, mash, smash, and descriptive words like icky, nasty, and smelly.

Parent message: "A great way to work on vocabulary is to point out descriptive words in a book and then give a short explanation of what it means, like "smelly" means it has a really bad smell to it, like dirty diapers or when the dog needs a bath."

Phonological Awareness : lots of opportunities to play with sounds, with words like: blink, squeal, ah, stop, roar, squeeze, and all of the alliterative words in the "alphabet soup" section.

Parent message: One way to play with phonological awareness is read alliterative words/words that start with the same sound and really emphasize those sounds. You can have the kids says them with you, like "mmmmmmoldy mmmmmeatballs" and "ddddddirty ddddddiapers" and "rrrrrrrotten rrrrradishes".

Print Awareness : again, there are many different fonts, sizes, and colors of letters in the text, with the text being easy to differentiate from the illustrations.

Parent message: "The two-page spread with no words by the bright-red BURRRP! makes it easy to point out the different between the word printed and the background picture."

Good to pair with: Trashy Town or Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash! or My Little Sister Ate One Hare for a "gross books" storytime.

Natasha Forrester