Retelling Stories Through Art: Driving My Tractor

My almost 3 year old loves to read books at bedtime, but it can be hard to get him to stop all his daytime activity for a story. Yesterday I decided to try out giving him some props to help him re-engage with a past favorite singalong book, Driving My Tractor by Jan Dobbins and David Sim.

In each verse of the song, the farmer picks up another kind of animal in his trailer, with the number of animals increasing with each new species (1 black and white cow, 2 gray donkeys, etc.) I thought my little guy would enjoy putting the animals into the trailer as we sang each verse.

I asked him if he wanted to do an activity with his tractor book, and he gave me an enthusiastic yes. Since this was at 9 am (prime busy time for him), I think he would have said a firm no if I asked him if he wanted to read/sing the book.

We started off by printing 5 copies of these finger puppet templates that go with the book and  can be found on the Barefoot Books website. We flipped through the book and counted how many of each animal we would need (my son needed a little help with this since he hasn't mastered one-to-one correspondence yet.) I then cut out the number of each animal that was needed, and he got to work on coloring/scribbling on each one.

I cut out a large tractor and trailer and made a crude drawing of the farmer. After cutting these out, the little guy decorated these with scribbles and glued wheels on to both of the vehicles. He put the farmer into the tractor and we were ready to sing the book.

As we sang each verse, he put the animal(s) from that verse in the trailer (it took a bit of prompting at first, and he seemed concerned when it started to get really crowded in the trailer!)

The next to last verse of the song talks about how the tractor hits a stone, the animals fall out and they run away. I thought surely my little guy would want to dump the animals out of the trailer. But he was adamant that they stay (probably because it had been a lot of work getting them in there in the first place.) We ended up singing the song several times, and the third time he had the animals run away by sliding the entire trailer-ful under the book.

After asking to sing the song several times and playing with all the pieces, he lost interest. I left the activity spread on the table, and later he came back and announced that the animals needed a farm (by which he meant a barn.) I quickly cut one out and then he told me all the animals were going (inside) under the barn to eat.

Overall this activity was a big hit for him. I was pleased that it got him:

• dancing (perhaps because I put the book down on the table and so I was moving around more than normal).
• talking about different aspects of a book that we've read hundreds of time (such as the difference between smooth and bumpy, since the tractor is driving down a bumpy road.)
• interacting with a book during a time of day he is normally too restless to read.
• playing independently for a good length of time.

I definitely want to try similar play activities with other books in the future. Perhaps I will get really ambitious and try out a flannel board for re-telling a story.

See Driving My Tractor (or any other Barefoot Book) come alive through music, storytelling, and crafts at one of my family story time parties. Sign up for my email newsletter to get invitations to ones I host myself, or ask me about hosting one for your friends and earning free books!