Tip #130 from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents (McKinley, Trombly): Point of View

 


Today's tip for parents from two talented teachers comes from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents by Cindy McKinley Alder and Patti Trombly.

                                                           #130

Point of View

 

Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar.
~Bradley Miller

 

Your child is undoubtedly good at seeing the world through her own eyes in her own way, but how good is she at putting herself in someone (or something) else’s shoes? Try this activity to help your child with some creative writing skills as well as practice critical thinking skills.

 

●      Choose an object. This could be anything—a person, animal, character; for an example, let’s use a caterpillar.

●      Help your child make a list of things she knows and how she feels about the object (the caterpillar). Discuss with her and help her add many ideas. The more the better! For instance, she might list:

○      bug;

○      lives in trees

○      eats leaves

○      creepy

○      lives with others

○      makes a chrysalis

○      changes into a butterfly

●      Don’t hesitate to do a little research if she picks a topic you are not too sure about!

●      Now have her change her point of view and actually think about being that object. Have her write sentences for many of them as if she were the caterpillar, such as:

○      I am a bug.

○      I like to be in trees.

○      I eat leaves.    

○      I crawl around with my many legs.   

○      I live with so many brothers and sisters.       

○      I know how to make a chrysalis and in it I change into a butterfly! (Has “she” decided she doesn’t feel very creepy anymore?)

●      Help her to turn the sentences into a paragraph.

●      If she is interested in displaying or sharing her writing, help her to edit it and then encourage her to rewrite or type it. She could even illustrate it.

 

Variations:

●      Could she send it to a relative and ask the relative to do the same by writing about something else in its point of view?

●      You could even make this a game by writing them without telling what the object is and having the listeners or readers guess!

●      She could even write a letter to an object or character. You could write back to her as that object. She would be applying her knowledge of the object and have so much fun reading your response! For instance, she writes to a tree and you respond by writing back to her as the tree.

●      Try it the other way around. Write a letter yourself to an object, asking a lot of questions, and then challenge your child to answer you as that object. This time she will really have to change her point of view in order to give you a meaningful response.

 

Sometimes her opinion of things may change after this activity. She may treat things differently or develop more sympathy. Who knows, a few caterpillars may even be saved along the way!

   


     Cindy McKinley Alder                                            Patti Trombly

 

For more posts about the authors and their books (this is not the only one), click HERE.

For excerpts from more books, click HERE. 

For more excerpts from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents, click HERE.

          For more posts about books about parenting, click HERE. 



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