The Doorbell Rang

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The Doorbell Rang

By Pat Hutchins

 

Concepts and Themes To Teach

  • Sharing
  • Starving
  • Doorbell
  • Cousins
  • Enormous
  • Tray

 

 

Expanded Core Curriculum Skills and Activities

 

 

Compensatory Skills

  • The Smell of Cookies: discuss with the child how the children in the story knew that cookies were baking.  Bake cookies and have the child identify when they can first smell the cookies.  Walk away from the area, wait a minute, and then walk back in.  Have the child stop when they can first smell the cookies baking.

 

 

Orientation and Mobility

  • Practice locating or following a scent.  Using a strongly scented room freshener spray (sweet scent would be appropriate), have an adult scent a room, or create a simple route down a hallway into a room.  Immediately see if the child can find or follow the scent, by following their nose!

 

 

Social Interaction

  • Practice sharing as told in the story.  Give one child a food item, such as a very large scored chocolate candy bar.  Break the bar into 2 to share with another child.  Then add 2 more, then 4, each time the children should break their pieces in half to share.  Can also be demonstrated with quantity of items, such as toy cars.  Reinforce and praise the act of sharing with friends.

 

 

Independent Living Skills

  • Bake slice ‘n bake cookies or make cookies from scratch.

 

  • The mother in the story is trying to clean the floor with a mop and bucket.  Help the child learn to clean the floor.  Use a small bucket, sponge mop, and detergent.  Show how to wring the mop out.  Have the child practice squeezing the water out and wiping the floor. 

 

  • Mount a doorbell on a piece of wood.  Demonstrate how the doorbell works.  Move the bell to different parts of the room.  Make it a game to listen and locate the bell.