DOCUMENT RESUME ED 355 493 CS 011 240 AUTHOR Shermis, Michael, Ed. TITLE Parents and Children Together. Volume 3, Nos. 1-8, July 1992-February 1993. INSTITUTION Indiana Univ., Bloomington. Family Literacy Center. REPORT NO ISSN-1050-7108 PUB DATE Feb 93 NOTE 668p.; For volume 1, see ED 329 942; for volume 2, see ED 345 220. AVAILABLE FROM Family Literacy Center, Indiana University, 2805 East 10th Street, Suite 150, Bloomington, IN 47408-2698 ($7 per booklet, including audiotape). PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Use Instructional Materials (For Learner) (051) Collected Works Serials (022) Audiovisual /Non -Print Materials (100) JOURNAL CIT Parents and Children Together; v3 n1-8 Jul-Feb 1992-93 EDRS PRICE MF03/PC27 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Elementary Education; *Parent Child Relationship; Parent Influence; Parenting Skills; *Parent Participation; *Parents as Teachers; *Parent Student Relationship; Preschool Education; *Reading Aloud to Others; Reading Materials; Talking Books IDENTIFIERS *Family Literacy ABSTRACT This series of booklets, each one focusingon a different topic, is intended for parents and children to read together as they listen to the companion audiotape that accompanies each booklet. Each booklet answers practical questions fromparents, describes activities that can be undertaken at home, notessome books for parents and children, and contains three read-along stories,as well as numerous cartoon-like illustrations. The eightbooklets in volume 3 (the final volume of the series) areon the following topics: (1) Enjoying Art All Around Us;(2) Making Writing Meaningful; (3) Speaking and Listening;(4) Improving Your Child's Memory; (5) Teamwork Learning;(6) Expanding Your Child's Vocabulary; (7) Learning about the Lives of Famous People;and (8) Special Needs of Special Children. (N0U) ********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best thatcan be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** PARENTS AND CHILDREN TOGETHER Volume 3, Numbers 1-8 July 1992 - February 1993 "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS U S. OEPASTMENT OF EDUCATION: MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY e EauCat.Ona. Research and ED ATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER ;ERIC) 2714C Th.S document has bee" reproducedas receured tne persOn organ.lahon ohg.nahhci .t C Moo, ceaeges Pare been made lc.eDo.,e reproduction auauty TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Po.rqs o- OChrhons Slated ,n Ines docu men! do not neCessaros represent INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC).- OER, pos.t.or, Or policy riLST COPY AVAILABLE Parents and Children Together Enjoying Art All around Us 3r Read-along Stories: Giraffe's Climbing Button Not the Least Bit Silly Tale of the Two-Toed Pigeon BEST COPY AVAILABLE J This booklet has a companion audio tape on "Enjoying Art All around Us." Occasionally there are directions on the tape that do not appear in the booklet or headings in the booklet that aren't spoken on the tape. f. Parents and Children Together is published by the Family Literacy Center at Indiana University, 2805 E. 10th Street, Suite 150, Bloomington, IN 47408-2698. Copyright © 1992. 4 Table of Contents Getting Started 1 Art for Everyone 2 Making Art Fun for Your Child 15 Activities for Fun and Learning 21 Books for Parents and Children 24 Read-along Stories Giraffe's Climbing Button 36 by Toby Speed Not the Least Bit Silly 44 a by Donna Colwell Rosser Tale of the Two-Thed Pigeon 52 by Herbert R. Glodt --.44,74.10.210/111111 --01111h.: IL Getting Started Welcome to this issue of Parents and Children Tbgether. We see art all around us, in many different forms and styles. In this issue, we highlight how you can share art with your children. On side B of the audio tape (and in the second half of ti..e booklet) we have thr:.,e read- along stories. We encourage you to listen to these stories and to read them with your children, so that they may participate in the excitement of story reading. Of course, your child can also listen to the stories alone, if you wish. 1 Art for Everyone Have you noticed how often children today bring home drawings or craft projects from school? Teachers often ask children to express their feelings about a story by drawing a picture or by making a collage. Have you noticed the art in children's books? What dramatic displays of color and imagination! u2 Have you noticed that even school textbooks look more like well-illustrated library books than like the grayish textbooks of the past? Ifyou look at your children's reading textbooks, for example, you will probably find chapters on famous, artists or famous museums with color photographs of their well-known paintings and sculptures. These examples of illustrations in books, and the use of art as a means to respond to stories or to science lessons, show the value we place on visual images. Works of beauty and imagination can uplift us, excite us, give us joy, and tell us important things about our humanity. We all know that children love to express themselves through arts and crafts activities. With simple materials like crayons, paper,yarn, and glue, young children will create their impression of the warmth of sunshine or the feeling of raindrops on their heads. 3 By encouraging our children to describe and interpret their art work for us, we give them an opportunity to tell us about their feelings, about their humanity. One of the ways that you can stimulate your child's interest in art is to make him or her a craft cabinet out of four or five shoe boxes that are pasted together like a mini-display case. Each compartment can hold separate materialspieces of cloth, crayons, bits of styrofoam, leaves and twigs, colored paper, and so on. In this craft cabinet your child can store the small treasures that can be used to create impressions or to tell stories. After reading a book together, for instance, you might ask your child to make a picture that describes his feelings about the story. 4 Older children, too, may want to use artas a way to respond to the books they read. One of my daughters, while in middle school, drew a watercolor (.,f a sad-faced Vietnamese girl. Thiswas her response to a story about boat people who braved the dangers of the sea in order to find a better life. I framed that picture and hung iton my wall. It is still there many years after it was first drawn because it shows my daughter's concern for other people. Displaying your child's drawings, paintings, and sculpture is a way of encouraging his creativity and of showing your pleasure with these artistic forms of expression. Many parentsuse the refrigerator as a bulletin board for their children's art. You may want to use your child's art as a kind of postcard to grandparents or other relatives. Just as words can communicate and can indicate child development, so can art. 5 Trees and Museums We don't want to give the impression that the only way to participate in art is to draw or to sculpt something. When you and your child take a walk, notice variations in colors, feel the bark of trees to sense their texture, admire the shape of a building, or feel the serenity of water in a pond, you are sensing art. Your child will grow artistically from those experiences. When you visit art fairs or museums and comment briefly on what you like and what you do not like, you are fostering appreciation for artistic expression. Children don't want lengthy lectures, just a brief comment on your preferences. These easy, natural steps into the world of art have the same effect that reading stories do. They build awareness and appreciation through exposure. 6 Artists express their ideas and their feelings through color and shape and texture. Their ideas and feelings may lift our spiritsor may make us angry, just as words in a book may do. We praise or reject ideas in books, and we do the same thing with works of art. In fact, that'sa valuable lesson for our children to learnthat artcan stimulate critical thinking. Our thoughts about art usually begin with an overall reaction, for example, "I really like that painting," or "I wouldn't want that thing in my house." Then we start to figure out why we like or dislike it so much. By analyzingour reactions out loud, we showour children that it's okay to think differently about art dependingon the criteria that we apply. 7 Your children's school fosters art appreciation through stories and illustrations in textbooks and through museum visits and discussions about various kinds of art. Almost all reading textbooks for elementary school children have stories about artists and their work. Full- color illustrations of famous paintings or sculptures accompany these stories. Similarly, many library books offer the same broad opportunities for children to see and to discuss art and artists. Through books, through visits to museums, and by looking at the art that people display in their homes and in their businesses, your children can decide gradually what they like and why. They can decide whether they want art to brighten and beautify their lives or to jar them into thinking seriously about lifeor both. 41 , 8 1,1 I ) What Parents Can Do When you hang a picture of Mickey Mouse in your child's bedroom, you are starting your child's art education. That picture says that art brightens our lives and reminds us to smile, even when it's raining. When you hang a mobile over your child's crib, you are doing more than giving her something to watch as it moves and swings in the air.