Identifying with Curious George

After a week's break, we're back at the Gray School (Summer Edition). As I've said many times, one of our main goals in the Gray School is to help the Lark develop narrative thinking and narrative comprehension. An important element of narrative thinking is the ability to identify with the characters in a story, so we are always trying to stimulate identification--with real people, with animals, and with characters in stories.

Today we tried Curious George again--the first one. I remembered that it had pictures of George walking on telephone wires and floatng away with a bunch of balloons. The Lark has frequently expressed a desire to fly, to jump down from the clouds, and even specifically to climb up a telephone pole and to float up with a balloon. So I sat down with him and the book and opened it up to the pictures of these things. I didn't say anything about the story; I just tried to express my identification with George--"Be careful, Curious!" or "Wheee, up he goes!" The Lark was very interested and amused. He pointed at the picture of George hanging on to the balloons and looking very frightened, and said, "That will be the end of Curious George!" (This is a phrase I use when he asks me things like, what will happen if he jumps out of the car as it's moving--I say, that will be the end of the Lark." He finds this very funny.) Anyway, when I pointed to George up on the wire and gave a look of mock anxienty, the Lark matched my expression with his own and then laughed.

The best part is that I resisted the urge to take it any farther than this. I'll pick it up again tomorrow and see what happens.