Written by Analia
I have been with the Bookworm team Library in School Program ( LiS) for over three months now and suddenly I was in the lead. Quite content to be a Second in Command I was worried about taking the lead role. My first class was scheduled for St. Thomas Boys Primary School , std. 1. The story assigned to me with a detailed Lesson plan and many good wishes was Malli by Jeeva Raghunath.
I started my class by talking to the children about the previous story. It was Chuk Chuk Chak. Many of them could not remember and said Purple Jojo, Jungle etc. I asked them where do they travel with train so they told me all kinds of places but did not come to the exact point. They were very eager to answer the question, which were related to Chuk Chuk Chak.
Then I started the Read Aloud by discussing what happens when guests/ relatives come over to our houses. What do we do ? Do we offer them anything ? Why ? They said that we give soft drinks, cookies, tea, sweet bun etc.
Once I had a lot of responses from the children and I knew they were well into the idea about a visitor, about shopping for gifts, I introduced the song that goes with the story. The lyrics to the song are:
We are going to the market, We are going to the fair,
We’ll buy some sweets and chocolates and other things there.
I wrote the lyrics on the board so that they could read it after me . We have found in the LiS program that when we write the lyrics on the board the children make a stronger attempt at connecting with the print and also pronounce the words better. We sang the song which they enjoyed fully with actions and the children were ready to sing it many times.
Then came the most difficult part which I was concerned about, the Read Aloud itself. But when I started the RA everything went on well, the stage fear or nervousness that I was worried about was not there. I was caught up in telling the boys the story of Malli and how the village was so friendly and supported her. The boys were really attentive and they could recollect all the things Malli had got from her neighbours in the village. I asked them questions regarding the story and they were able to answer all of them with great participation and excitement.
Most enjoyable time for the kids was the activity. To connect with the story, I asked them to imagine they were going to the market and all they had was Rs. 5.00. We made allowance for inflation as Malli’s Rs. 1.00 would not go too far even in a village shop! The boys were happy to draw the things that they would get for Rs.5 from the market. Most of them opted for ice cream and some opted for chips, lollipops, mangoes, apples and chocolates.
