A Screaming Kind Of Day: Teacher’s Guide

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General Themes And Connections:

  1. Family Dynamics
    • sibling relationships and rivalries
    • overworked and distracted parents
    • difficult days when everything goes wrong
  2. Children who are hard of hearing
    • the everyday experiences and challenges for hard of hearing children
    • children with “disabilities”
    • the development of other senses if one is absent or less developed
  3. Love of nature and connection with nature
  4. Rainy days and rainy day activities
  5. Night sky and constellations

Classroom Activities

  1. Topics of discussion
    1. Hard of hearingness and how that would effect Scully’s life: Have children cover their ears and demonstrate how, if you cannot hear, seeing the movement of the mouth to lip-read is an important part of communicating.
    2. How does Scully use her hard of hearingness to her favour?
    3. What does Scully feel during the different parts of the story?
    4. Why is Scully’s mother so busy and tired? What do you think she might be studying? Discuss the concept of lifelong learning.
    5. How does Scully get along with her brother Leo? How is this relationship typical of sibling relationships? How is it different? (This is intended to indicate the universality of Scully’s feelings, to show that we all have similar experiences and feelings, regardless of abilities/disabilities.)
    6. Discuss Scully’s relationship with the other members of her family. How does this relate to the relationships you have with your family members? (Again, this is intended to indicate the universality of Scully’s feelings.)
    7. Why does Scully long to go outside?
    8. Does Scully have a special love of nature? How does she describe the green of the woods?
    9. What extra special abilities does Scully have as a result of her hard of hearingness? (Lip reading; reading faces for expressions; heightened sense of sight; special love of nature etc.)
    10. Do you like rainy days? How do they make you feel? What kinds of things do you like to do on rainy days?
    11. When you have a screaming kind of day, what kinds of things make you feel better? Do you have a favourite toy?
  2. Writing Exercises:
    1. Write a journal entry that Scully might write at the end of this day.
    2. Write a list of the feelings that Scully goes through during her screaming kind of day.
    3. Write about your worst screaming kind of day. What went wrong and how did things get better?
    4. Make a list of your favourite rainy day activities.
    5. Describe a fun activity that Scully and her mother might enjoy on a day that is not a screaming kind.
    6. Make a list of words that fit a rainy day (eg umbrella, raincoat, sopping, soaking). Include at least two words for each of the five senses.
    7. Make up a story about an adventure that you, or an imaginary character, might have on a rainy day.
  3. Art Activities
    1. Draw faces with expressions showing how Scully feels during different parts of this story.
    2. With coloured pencils or paints, use colours to show Scully’s feelings during the different parts of the story:
    3. when she wakes up; when she longs to play in the rain; when she sneaks out; when she is grounded; when she wakes up from her nap; over dinner; when she is outside watching stars with her mother.
    4. Draw a picture of your worst screaming kind of day.
    5. If you could see the stars sing, what would they look like? Draw a picture.
  4. Extra Study and Research activities:
    1. Read up on constellations and draw and name at least five.
    2. Read up on the rain cycle and do a report.

    5. Copyright © Rachna Gilmore

    One of a series of Teacher’s Guides found at www.rachnagilmore.ca

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