Wizard of Oz Yellow Brick Road Sequence Game

Saturday, January 22, 2011

"We're off to see the Wizard."

Grandma invited our kids to go see the Wizard of Oz theater production this past month. I've tried to get my 7-year-old to watch the movie several times but the first time she tried watching it a few years ago she got too scared of the witch, never finished watching, and subsequently refuses to watch it anytime I offer.  At first she did not want to go to the theater with Grandma either thinking it would be too scary. 

I decided to pull out some books to explain the story so she would be familiar with it before hand.
We bought this 3-D book before we even had children. We pulled it out and did an overview of the story as the kids searched for the characters and put on a play on the little pop-out stage. You turn the pages for different backdrops.

My son loved it and my daughter finally understood the story and was relieved to find out the witch melted at the end.
Reading and playing with this book helped her overcome her fear of the Wizard of Oz.

We also pulled up some stage productions of the show on YouTube that let her get a feel for what to expect at the theatre. I'm happy to report that both our kids went to the show, enjoyed it (daughter admitted closing her eyes several times which I told her was totally fine) and they have been whistling and humming the songs ever since.

The Wizard of Oz story is by L. Frank Baum. This 3-D Playset is illustrated by Phil Wilson.

Try this Sequencing Activity to create your own Yellow Brick Road:

1. Get a few pieces of yellow construction paper.
2. Find some pictures of the characters from the Wizard of Oz. I found some great coloring pages from the movie on the Educational Coloring Pages site. And some simple line drawings with a witch and tornado on DLTK's site. Nick-Magic has some great story pictures. I like this pic of the Emerald City and rainbow. Some great pics of the witch and munchkins.
3. Print and color the pics you like, then glue onto a 1/2 sheet or full sheet of construction paper.
4. Have your child place them in a row (in sequential order) across the room or down the hallway, creating a path (or yellow brick road).  Then let your child step on each one and tell you a little bit about the story as they remember it.



Our kids also like this book with sound buttons from the Play-a-sound series. I have to admit the witch and wizard sounds freaked me out everyonce in a while when the kids have left it on the floor and something sets it off accidentally. 






Here is a fabulous pop-up version illustrated by Robert Sabuda.





I found an amazing compilation and review on more pop-up books over at Squidoo this week. I love the Alice and Wonderland and Star Wars versions.
Linking to:
Today's Creative Blog

Have any of you ever use books to help children reduce their fear of something?

1 comments:

RedTedArt said...

Great idea to revisit the books and that lovely little theatre before going to the "real" theatre!! I can imagine that that really helped!!

Thanks again for link up!

Maggy

Post a Comment

What do you think? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this. Thanks so much for visiting obSEUSSed!

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails