My Opposites Book

Activity Overview

What is the opposite of big? What is the opposite of hot? What is the opposite of slow? Teaching young learners about opposites is a natural tool that adults use when having a conversation with a child. It may feel completely natural and intuitive when you are talking to your own child, but what is really happening during those brief discussions? While children are searching the world for a new pairing, they are challenged to encounter new ideas, words, and phrases as part of the process. This is why a lot of work using opposites in early childhood is a natural tool for building literacy skills like language acquisition and sentence structure. This search for new ideas also helps foster independent inquiry, which builds observational skills, and as students continue to work with opposites, they will be asked to follow more and more multi step problem solving tasks. Not only do they first need to find an object, but they then need to categorize the object, identify characteristics, and find another object that has an opposite characteristic. It’s not a simple process for our earliest learners so we hope that you will find benefit in starting slow and building up to a finished product - The Opposites Book.

What You Need

• Opposites by Luana Mitten

• Opposites Book template

• Sheet of paper

• Scissors

• Glue stick

• Writing utensils such as markers, crayons, or colored pencils

Steps

1. Read Opposites by Luana Mitten. As you read, guide your student to identify the set of opposites on each page.

2. Together with your student, create a list of 3-5 sets of opposites that could be found or represented outdoors. Write the pairs down on a sheet of paper so you remember what you selected. Examples include: Big and small, tall and short, fast and slow, high and low, up and down, over and under

3. Plan how you will represent these opposites outdoors. For example, your student could run fast and walk slowly. Your student can observe tall and short trees. Your student could throw leaves up and watch them fall down.

4. Use the Opposites Book template to make a book representing each opposite pair. Choose one of two ways to make the book:

   1. Take photos of your student demonstrating each opposite pair, print the photos, cut and glue them onto the template.

   2. Find pictures in magazines to represent each opposite pair, cut them out, and glue them onto the template.

5. Add words to each page that describe the opposite pair.

6. Read your story together, and then read it with a family member or friend.

Guiding Questions

• What is the opposite of [up, big, out, over, fast]?

• Can you show me [up, big, out, over, fast] with your body? Can you show me the opposite?

Extensions

• Make a video book of your student acting out each opposite pair.

• Play an opposite game. Using the book your student has made, read aloud and have them act out the opposite pair on the page. Challenge your student by reading one item of the pair, and have them act out the opposing item.