Learning Link: Bringing Margaret Wise Brown Classics to Life

Margaret Wise Brown, the author behind the beloved picture book, Goodnight Moon, and more than 100 other works, is also our November Author of the Month for our Infant, Toddler and Get Set classrooms.

When Brown started writing children’s books, she was working as a teacher at the Bank Street Experimental School in New York City. The school championed what was then a unique approach to literature emphasizing the “here and now.” With a quick look at the library of books she has authored, it’s easy to see how strongly this influence resonated with Brown.

In that same spirit, our classes are not only exploring her books throughout the month — they’re also experiencing those stories in the here and now by taking part in hands-on activities that bring the classics to life, as shown at The Malvern School of Blue Bell below.

Building a cohesive, intellectually stimulating and fun learning plan is core to our curriculum during the school day, and there are plenty of ways to extend this connected approach to learning at home. Just get your imagination going!

Here are some Learning Links that can help you add dimension to and extend the educational value of even a simple story like Goodnight Moon:

• Create a Goodnight Moon sensory bottle by combining glitter, moon and star shapes and water in a bottle. Don’t forget to secure the bottle top, and add some hot glue as an extra safeguard, if you need it.
• Get artistic with textured paint (a mixture of white paint and flour) to create a moon all your own and engage your child’s senses.
• With your child, talk about what you do in your bedtime routine. This is a great, very natural exercise in sequencing.
• Or, cut out photos showing different phases of the moon, then with your child practice putting the phases in order.
• Make your own playdough. Make it a dark color using food coloring and then add glitter to create a nighttime sky, or other shapes, to exercise the little muscles in those fingers and flex that creativity!

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