Are You My Mother Screen-Free Coding Activity for Preschoolers

The Virtual Book Club for Kids is featuring Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman this week. We had fun playing a screen-free coding activity for preschoolers inspired by the book. The coding game gets kids moving and thinking while working on problem-solving skills. Be sure to check out all of the bird themed activities at the end. I get commissions for purchases made through the affiliate links in this post.

Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman

Are You My Mother? was hands down Aiden’s favorite book when he was two. The repetition and predictability of the book makes it an easy story to remember. This is perfect for storytelling. The baby bird hatches from his egg and his mother is nowhere in sight, so he sets out on a quest to find her. There’s a problem: he doesn’t know what she looks like. The baby bird asks everyone he meets, “Are you my mother?” Then, the little bird gets picked up by “a Snort.”

Screen-Free Coding Activity for Preschoolers

Since Aiden loved retelling Are You My Mother? so much when he was little, I thought it would be fun to reintroduce the story to Lily (almost 4) and Elon (almost 2). We’ve read it several times in the past. They always enjoy the story, but they haven’t latched onto as much as Aiden did. I created this screen-free coding activity to help them connect to the book. It’s a fun way to retell the story while working on coding skills. Coding and programming are all about giving instructions to the computer so it can perform a task. We can practice coding skills with a game.

Materials You’ll Need:

• Squares of paper or tape to create a game grid
• Painter’s tape (optional)
• Dry erase board and marker (or pen and paper)
• Toys (or pictures) to represent the characters from the story
  • baby bird (ours is a Little Live Pets Surprise Chick)
  • nest (we used a bowl)
  • mother bird
  • kitten
  • hen
  • dog
  • cow
  • car
  • boat
  • plane (ours is
  • Snort (excavator or similar – we used the Green Toys Scooper Construction Truck)

Setup

Create a grid with your paper squares. I used cardstock in a variety of colors. I cut the cardstock into 4.25 inch squares. Attach the paper squares to the floor using painter’s tape (double check that the painter’s tape is safe for your floor).

Add the characters from the story to your grid. I planned out the route and placed the characters in order. You can let your child add the characters to the grid if you prefer.

How to Play the Game

The goal of the game is to help the baby bird travel through the grid meeting all of the book character’s along the way. One person will be the robot and another will be the programmer (or coder). The programmer will directions to the robot to move the baby bird.

You can let the programmer call out directions one at a time or you can have him write down all of the directions (the entire program) at the beginning and then read the directions. Aiden (age 8) wrote out directions for Lily (almost 4) to follow. He used the commands forward, left, right, and backwards. For example, he told Lily to move forward 3 times. This led Lily and the baby bird from the plane to the Snort.

Lily was the programmer next. Instead of using directional commands, we used color commands. She called out a color of where to move to next. For example, to move the baby bird from the dog to the cow, she told me to go to the white square and then the orange one. Using colors makes it a little less confusing for younger kids. They don’t have to think about the perspective of the bird in order to give directions.

Lily loved moving the baby bird around the squares and especially enjoyed carrying the bird with the Snort back to the nest. I love how this activity combines coding with storytelling.

Elon (almost 2) came and joined the activity at one point. He saw the story unfolding and had to play, too. We tried to tell him where to move the baby bird. He had his own ideas instead. He jumped the baby bird onto different squares and tried to name the color. He liked having the bird visit the different characters as well.

I love how this activity can be modified for different ages. Take the idea and make it your own.

Storybook Science

Our last week of the Storybook Science series is all about Science with Robots. We’re sharing science activities that involve robotics skills (coding, building robots, design, engineering, etc.) Follow along with the rest of our Storybook Science here. Bloggers have been sharing science ideas inspired by children’s books throughout the month of March.

More Activities from the Virtual Book Club for Kids

See more bird themed activities inspired by Are You My Mother?

Bird & Nest Letter Matching – Preschool Powol Packets
Bird Pre-writing Activity – Mama Smiles
Birds Nest Math Game – Rainy Day Mum
Bird Life Cycle Spinners- Teach Beside Me
Are You My Mother? Shape Craft by JDaniel4’s Mom

Also stop by the Virtual Book Club for Kids Facebook group to see what others are sharing!

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