With the winter days still around, it is nice to bring a little color into the classroom right now. This past week we have been exploring oranges and we definitely had LOTS of orange all around the classroom…
As a part of our exploration, we read the book “An Orange in January” by Dianna Hutts Aston. This book takes the reader through the process of growing oranges to selling them at the market. Before reading the book, I counted the number of pages in the book to be sure I would have enough pages to pass an orange all the way around the circle of children. “Each time I turn to the next page of our story, please pass the orange to the person next to you!”
Passing the orange while I read the story keeps the children engaged in the story while they wait or anticipate their turn to hold the orange…
Some of the children would squeeze the orange with their hands or smell the orange before passing it off to the next child. Others just preferred to hold the orange quietly while they waited for me to turn the page…
This was a good book for passing around the orange because it was fine to stop throughout the story and talk about what was going to happen next or to talk about some of the illustrations on a page. We took our time going through and discussing the book rather than just doing a straight reading of the story…
By the time the book got to the very last page, the orange had made it all the way around our circle and was handed back to me! Now it was time to head off to our centers for a little time in orange play…
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow On
Orange Juice Waterplay by Teach Preschool
Crispy Orange Chips By Just Making Noise