What to say when you don't know what to say

A teaching unit for early childhood and the first years of school.

Reading, listening to and appreciating the book 

Book introduction (big picture)

• Get to know the book before you read it aloud. Think about how the reading voice can be used to demonstrate and express emotions: can you guide children towards understanding and identifying the emotions in the book with your tone and expressions? 
• Look at the illustrations on the front cover and discuss. What do you see? What are the children doing? Do they look happy or sad? How can you tell?
• Support children’s understanding of the vocabulary used to name emotions by watching a selection of these Moodies videos (free ABC iView account required for access). Discuss with children what each emotion feels like, and ask them to share their own experiences of feeling sad, happy, worried, etc. As you come across the emotions in the book (anxious, brave, sad, etc) you may like to revisit the relevant video and discuss connections to children’s own experiences.
• As you read each page discuss what emotion the child featured may be feeling. Some of the emotions are stated explicitly in the text (e.g., shy, brave, happy) but some require a level of inference (e.g., embarrassed, sad, lonely, nervous). Support children to notice the clues in the illustration and to connect the events to their own experiences in order to infer what the character on the page may be feeling. Come up with a list of agreed terms to describe each character’s emotion and record on an ‘emotions list’. You may like to use a visual representation as well as the written word to support understanding (smiley face, angry face, etc). This might also present an opportunity to introduce songs and rhymes about emotions. 

Close reading

• Text structure: Choose one of the characters and trace their story through the book. How do the friends help the character to feel better? What do they say? What do they do?
• Text connections: Ask children to share a time when someone said something that made them feel bad, or a time when they said something that made someone else feel bad. Why did it make them feel that way, or what made them say the unkind words?
• Text connections: Support children to share a time when they were sad/ angry/ upset and someone said something that made them feel better. What did the person say? Why did it help them feel better? 
• Vocabulary/ oral language: Make a list of words that describe emotion e.g., happy, sad, angry, frustrated, excited, mad, etc. Children might like to use their facial expression or their body to show each of the emotions. Ask children to take it in turns to share a feeling and a time or something that makes them feel that way: I feel excited when Mum says it’s time for Kinder. I felt sad when I had to say goodbye to my friend. I felt worried when I left my favourite toy at the park.
• Visual literacy: Choose one of the images in the text to analyse. Look closely at the pictures of the children. What can you tell about each of their thoughts, feelings and actions by looking at their facial expressions and body language? 
• Language: The text features a number of pronouns. Support students to identify the pronouns in the book by asking them to find the words that tell us ‘who’ on each page (e.g., I, you, everyone, me). Ask students to choose one of the words and draw a picture to match. You may like to use photos of individual or groups of students as an alternative. Label the pictures with the chosen pronoun and create a classroom display.
  

Word recognition, phonic knowledge and spelling

• Explore the letter and sound ‘w’ as it is used in the book. Read the text aloud and ask children to tap their finger once on the floor every time they hear a word that starts with the ‘w’ sound. Record some of the words from the text that start with the ‘w’ sound (what, when, won’t, wish, worry, way, were, want, with). Using the recorded words, ask children to take it in turns to trace the letter ‘w’ with their fingers. While they are waiting for their turn, the rest of the class might like to practise writing the letter ‘w’ on the floor with their finger. A song or rhyme focusing on the letter and sounds could be use in the transition phase between learning episodes.
• Go on a ‘w’ sound hunt to find items in the classroom that start with the ‘w’ sound. Create labels for the found items. Allow children to have a go at writing the starting letter ‘w’ and then write the rest of the word for them. 
• Explore the ‘s’ sound as it is heard in the text. Ask children to listen for the sound and draw a s shaped ‘snake’ on the floor in front of them each time they hear it.
• Go on a ‘s’ sound hunt to find items in the classroom that start with the ‘s’ sound. Create labels for the found items. Allow children to have a go at writing the starting letter ‘s’ and then write the rest of the word for them. Children may find items that start with the ‘s’ sound but not the letter ‘s’ (circle, cement, ceiling etc.) Record these words and ask children to notice what is different about the starting letter. 

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Using the book for listening, speaking, writing and creating

For this unit, links between receptive and productive modes have been made. For each teaching idea in Using the book for listening, speaking, writing & creating you will find a corresponding teaching idea in Close Reading: 

• Making meaning: Ask children to think about and share what they might say to someone in some of the situations featured in the book. “If someone was feeling…. I would say…”
• Text connections: Give children a circular piece of paper and ask them to draw a face that shows how they might feel in different situations. Notice the way that the shape of our mouth can show our feelings. Draw some faces on a whiteboard or poster using a variety of emoji style mouths. Match the faces to the children at different stages of the text.
• Text connections: Allow students to adapt the ideas in the text by creating their own friendship story through play. Possible ideas include toys, puppets, role play etc. Encourage children to think about what they might say to help in different scenarios.
• Visual literacy: Ask children to draw a picture of a time when they were feeling upset. Display the pictures in a classroom gallery. As a class, or in small groups, work together to discuss and record some possibilities of what you might say to the person in each picture. Write the suggested responses on small paper circles and display around the picture edges.
• Oral language/ sentence structure: The text uses direct first-person speech throughout. To extend children’s understanding of different ways to tell a story choose one page of the text and model an oral re-telling of the events that have happened. Include what the character said, additional detail about the circumstances (who, where, what happened, why) and an inference about how the character was feeling. Use these prompts to support children to create their own oral re-tell for one of the pages in the text.
• Visual literacy/ creative thinking: Choose one of the pages of the text. Discuss what has happened, how the character felt and what was said. Work with the children to make a prediction about what might happen next. As children offer suggestions support them to explain their thinking by asking ‘what makes you think that?’ Notice and point out when children are making connections to their own experiences in order to make their prediction.
  

Relevant resources and links

• Moodies early education pack (ABC)
• Social and emotional learning (BeYou)
• 10 texts to support student wellbeing (PETAA)
  
  
  

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