*Picture book for preschoolers through first graders
*Families of all sorts are the main characters
*Rating: All Kinds of Families! is a sweet picture book full of interesting ideas about families. No matter what a child’s family looks like, they should feel like they belong with this book by Mary Ann Hoberman.
Short, short summary: All Kinds of Families! is a rhyming picture book with a repeating chorus that pops up throughout the book. Its main goal is to show children that there are all kinds of families–people belong to families but so do letters and numbers and even spoons and forks. It is also a great book for talking about family roles such as parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The concept of family tree is introduced briefly. Marc Boutavant’s illustrations are detailed and cute, and children could spend hours looking at them.
So, what do I do with this book?
1. This is the perfect book for a preschool, kindergarten, or homeschool class. Read the entire book through one time and just let children enjoy it. Then read a section at a time because there is so much information on each page about families–in the text and in the illustrations. Allow students to ask questions about the family groups that Mary Ann Hoberman mentions. Discuss the characteristics of a family throughout the reading of the book. This is a great book to use with a young primary grade social studies curriculum.
2. An obvious activity is to have students draw or write about their own families. You can also start a family wall or family bulletin board. Instead of “Star of the Week,” you can have “Family of the Week.” Allow students to bring in pictures of anyone in the family–grandma, grandpa, dogs, cats, sisters, cousins, etc. You can work with students to label pictures. With parents’ help, you could also ask students to make a simple family tree at home and display these in the classroom.
3. Using the examples in the book as models, what are some things in your classroom you could lump together to create families? What about pattern blocks (math manipulatives of any kind), reading books, art supplies, recess equipment, and so on? Create tags on sentence strips for these families with your students and hang them around the room. You can be creative with your tags such as: “Mr. and Mrs. Playground Balls and their five children” or “The Eraser Family” or “The Pencils Clan” and so on.
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