The Napping House

Throughout the month of January we have been enjoying stories and activities that have to do with Night Time.  This week, the preschoolers really enjoyed the story The Napping House by Audry Wood.  After introducing the story we added some story props to act out the story.  

We used my old lady from "The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" to represent granny.  The baby doll represents the child, then we used beanie babies for the dog and cat.  On top there is a "catnip mouse" topped off by a flee.  The flee is actually a plastic bed bug from the board game "Bed Bugs".  The first time we acted out the story using a doll bed as the bed.  Each child got the opportunity to choose a character and follow directions to place it directionally around the bed (in, under, beside, behind, etc).  The next day we used a big blanket and stacked all the characters on the blanket.  When the flee bit the mouse, we all pulled on the blanket to send the characters flying into the air just like in the story!  In our final reading of the story, each child had the opportunity to pretend that they were granny and we stacked all the characters on top of them until they were awakened by the flee!

These pictures were in the Preschool Mailbox Magazine several years ago.  We used them throughout the week to help us introduce and retell the story.  Next week they will be placed in the reading center along with word cards for the children to continue retelling the story.  The stuffed characters from above will be placed in the pretend play center for the children to continue retelling the story in that area as well.