Kiddipedia

Kiddipedia

There are lots of fun extension activities to do with our kids once the last page has been read. Here are practical, tired and tested ideas to try when expanding kids’ experiences, opinions and concepts about the books they read.

 

Expand kids’ thinking by casually chatting:

 

  • If you met the author or illustrator today, what would you say to them or ask them?

 

  • Can you think of a completely different ending to the story to flip the story around?

 

  • Would you recommend the story to your friends? Why/not?

 

  • Does this remind you of other titles, plots or characters in other stories? How?

 

  • Do you think the story or illustrations should be improved or changed? Explain..

 

  • Do you know anything else about the author and illustrator. Is their style similar to other people’s work?

 

  • Are there any rhyming words in the story. Take turns finding pairs of rhyming word (say them aloud to reinforce speech sounds and their patterns)

 

  • Is there a new word you’re not sure of in this story? What could it mean and why?

 

  • If the main character wasn’t a girl/boy, animal/human, would the story still make sense?

 

  • Do the author or illustrator have a website we can check out? Let’s find out.

 

  • Do any of the characters remind you of a real person you know? Discuss

 

  • What could happen next in the story?

 

  • Could it make sense if we cut the story sequence in half?

 

  • Can you add a few opposites or antonyms to change the meaning of one sentence in this book? Are word choices important?

 

Parts of Speech Game: The author uses part of speech in their writing.  Can you think of the nouns/verbs/adjectives/prepositions/adverbs/ challenge me by ‘hitting’ one back over to me and I will challenge you by ‘hitting’ another example back to you. You can refer to the book to clarify and check.

 

PARTS OF SPEECH GAME SHEET:

                                                             Eg: Child’s answers Adult’s answers
Nouns People/places/things Alex/city/bin/raod Mary/Melbourne/dinner/car
Adjectives Describing words dark/Stormy/long/ sad/ quiet/ travel/ ask
Verbs Doing words

(can be past tense)

 skip/ ran/ ate/ eat/ think cry/ laugh/ look
Adverb describes actions quietly/ thoughtfully/ shyly angrily/ hesitantly/ confidently/longer
Preposition usually in front of nouns/ tell us locational information next to/ on/ behind/ in/ under into/ beside/ beneath / through
Pronouns  to use instead of a name he/she/it /we/ us they/him/ her
Conjunctions join phrases, words or clauses and/ but/ so/ yet however/ although/ after/

 

It’s best to try these ideas with many different books over a long time period.

I trust these ideas will serve your family well, as another fun way to learn and grow…

 

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