A House is a House for Me

One thing that I am seeing, and that I had noticed before but it probably isn't brought up enough, is that children's books can fall under many categories of learning, especially as the students begin to enter different subject areas in school that are individualized. A House is a House for Me is a little tale about items and living things that simply go together. A glove is a house for a hand, and a house is a house for me...the story has perfect little rhyming schemes to keep it catchy and memorable and this is another story that is so loaded with teachable activities. The author, Mary Ann Hoberman , and seemed to find a home for almost everything and anything.

I used this book when I was student teaching in an inclusive Kindergarten classroom. For the pre-activity, I asked the kids about where they live, and they all agreed that they lived in a home or an apartment. Yes that topic can get sticky, but that's another time. Later we had the students each take an item or a living thing, and then it's corresponding home. We played a game where the object or thing had to "go home" to practice making the associations. For the post-activity, the students simply had to draw a line to match pictures with their individual homes. Here I saw a combination of Science, Social Studies and ELA components, it's impressive! I would say the reading levels are appropriate for a younger audience, Kindergarten to 2nd grade. All in all, I  enjoyed the story was so carefully put together, and it was perfect for my unit. :)