Playing With Words 365

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Going on a Stick Hunt {Inspired by Julia Donaldson’s Stick Man}

October 9, 2014 by Katie Filed Under: Books and Literacy Activities, Virtual Book Club 2014-2015 1 Comment

Welcome to the October installment of the Virtual Book Club for Kids! This month, our spotlight author is Julia Donaldson and I am super excited about our book of the month and our language building activity to go along!

going on a stick hunt

A Little About Stick Man

Stick Man lives in his home with his family when one day he gets carried off by a dog who thinks he makes a great fetching toy. We follow poor Stick Man along as he is swiped up here and there and dragged farther and farther from home. He is finally rescued by none other than Santa Claus himself and brought back home to his family! This book is an excellent new addition to our holiday library!

stick man

Stick Man is authored by Julia Donaldson, who you may recognize from The Gruffalo and one of my most favorites, Room on the Broom. Donaldson’s books are full of creative, rhyming language with amusing story lines that children just adore.

Learning Language Concepts- Going on a Stick Hunt

As I’ve mentioned previously, I want my activities to be SIMPLE, EASY and yet provide new experiences to help build and support speech, language and communication skills in young children. I want to provide activities that I think most people can do in their own homes easily. Our Stick Hunt fits the bill!

For Stick Man, I decided to take the learning outdoors and go on a Stick Hunt. We explored different language concepts by looking for sticks of different attributes like LONG, SHORT, FAT, THIN, etc. I made this scavenger hunt-type list for each of my “big” kids (almost 6 and 3 years, 9 months) so they could keep track of which types of sticks they found on our stick hunt. We then headed out and tried to find at least one stick with each attribute.

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My children LOVED spotting different looking sticks all over our neighborhood! They were engaged in conversation while they described the sticks to each other. They also had a blast comparing and contrasting the different sticks we found (“This one is LONGER than that one!” or “This stick is bumpy but that stick is smooth” and “This stick has many leaves and this stick only has a few leaves!”)

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And of course they loved checking off our finds along the way!

I allowed my children to bring home their FAVORITE stick from our walk. They then used their sticks to act out parts of the Stick Man story. My daughter felt that it was very important to find a stick that had leaf hair, like Stick Man from the book 😉

Scavenger Hunts are Awesome.

Scavenger hunts like this one are FANTASTIC for speech & language skill building. They provide opportunities for teaching targeted vocabulary in a very FUN and PLAYFUL way. I recommend using PICTURES with young children as well as with children with language delays, rather than just words as I used here. (My daughter was working on reading the words while my son was working on identifying the beginning letters and sounds in addition to the language use during this activity).

Have you ever done a scavenger hunt?

I’d LOVE to hear about it in the comments!

Check out these Julia Donaldson Inspired Activities from the Virtual Book Club for kids Bloggers!

Room on the Broom Activities 

Room on the Broom Activities by Inspiration Laboratories 

Room on the Broom for a Rhyme by Ready Set Read 

Room on a Broom Ordinal Numbers  by Rainy Day Mum

Room on the Broom Sensory Bin by Still Playing School 

Witch Hat Cupcakes for Kids by Coffee Cups and Crayons

Witch Hat Halloween Treat by The Pleasantest Thing  

Witch Shape Craft by Toddler Approved 

Stick Man Activities 

Books for Kids: Stick Man by Growing Book by Book 

Counting Ingredients into the Caldron by 3 Dinosaurs

Fancy Stick Crown by Mama Miss 

Going on a Stick Hunt by Playing with Words 365 

Recycled Stick Man Craft by LalyMom

The Gruffalo Activities 

DIY Gruffalo Inspired Mouse Costume by The Educators’ Spin On It 

Gruffalo Rhyming Tic Tac Toe Game by Royal Baloo

Gruffalo Themed Shape Animals by The Educators’ Spin On It 

Roll a Gruffalo Game by Playdough to Playto

Crystal and Co

Julia Donaldson Virtual Book Club by Virtual Book Club for Kids 

About Katie

Katie is a licensed, credentialed and certified pediatric speech-language pathologist and mom to four (8, 6, 3 and 6 months). Her passion for educating, inspiring and empowering parents of children with all abilities led her to start her blog playing with words 365 where she shares information about speech & language development & intervention strategies, parenting, photography and a little about her family life too. Katie has been working in the field of speech pathology for 12 years and is certified in The Hanen Centre’s It Takes Two to Talk ® and Target Word ® programs and holds a certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). In addition to blogging and being a mommy, Katie works part time in her small private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

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  1. Maths Activity for Room on the Broom says:
    August 6, 2015 at 7:43 am

    […] Book by Book Counting Ingredients into the Caldron by 3 Dinosaurs Fancy Stick Crown by Mama Miss Going on a Stick Hunt by Playing with Words 365 Recycled Stick Man Craft by […]

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