Book Summary
The Doorbell Rang is a fun cumulative tale. Mom makes a giant plate of cookies for her kids. But uh-oh! The doorbell rings, and a few neighbours show up. This means the original kids are going to have make a sacrifice and divide their cookies among the new arrivals. But uh-oh! The doorbell rings. And who's at the door but a few more hungry kids! Now the kids have to share the cookies among everyone again. The doorbell keeps ringing and the cookies keep getting divided until each kid's prospect of having even a single cookie to themselves starts looking slim...
Activities
I got the kids warmed up to the cookie theme by having one of the puppets (I chose a lizard because it had a particularly large mouth) munching away on a paper cookie while making lots of mmmmhhhh and crunching noises. I asked the puppet where it had got the cookie, and he answered that he got it from the cookie jar.
I found the cookie jar he was talking about but it was empty. I shook it upside down for emphasis. I asked if anyone knew who took the cookies from the jar. No one knew, so we sang a few rounds of "Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar".
Now that everyone had cookies on the brain, I read the story. I had the kids say "ding-dong" to be the sound of doorbell each time I read the phrase "the doorbell rang" to make the book more interactive.
After we had finished the book, I had the class pretend to make cookies with me. Taking out a giant bowl and spoon we sang a song I improvised to the "peanut peanut butter--and jelly" song replacing the peanut butter making instructions with cookie making instructions. At the bottom of the bowl I had placed more of the paper cookies and once we had finished "making" the cookies, I handed out the cookies to everyone.
I asked if anyone knew what letter the word cookie started with, and when I heard someone say "C", I put a big cut-out of the letter C on the board, and taught them Cookie Monster's song from Sesame Street "C is for Cookie" see it performed by best by Cookie Monster for inspiration.
Once everyone had learnt the song we sang it through from beginning to end. We held our cookies up triumpantly in the air, and then pretended to munch them up like Cookie Monster.
Another great storytime!
