Books
“It’s possible. I can achieve my dreams if I work hard at it.”
Abena just wants to be like everyone else in class, but she knows she is different. She has a stutter that makes her classmates laugh at her every time she speaks or reads aloud. Then Abena tells her grandmother about her difficulties. With Grandma’s help, Abena embarks on a journey to overcome her stutter and fulfill her dream of one day becoming a teacher.
Abena’s Big Dream is a wonderful addition to elementary classrooms, child care centers, preschools, and home libraries. Plus, its sweet themes about the importance of family relationships makes it a great gift! Not only will children, teachers, and caregivers love Abena’s story, but they’ll take many other important lessons away as well. The book helps:
teachers discuss bullying in schools and the effect it has on children
promote kindness by teaching children how to treat others with love and respect
parents, teachers, and guardians learn ways to support children who stutter
students develop essential social-emotional skills
children learn to work hard to achieve their dreams
teach students the important concepts of perseverance, compassion, and self-confidence
Abena’s Big Dream can also be used to help introduce other essential academic and social skills/concepts across multiple disciplines.
Book Description
If you are interested in a cross-curricular resource that ties academic proficiency with social-emotional skills, this guide is perfect for you! Learning social-emotional skills is critical to child development. Normalizing discussions about social-emotional topics is made easy through children’s literature; it’s a wonderful way to introduce big concepts to young students. That’s why this teaching guide was created!
This resource is a companion to Abena’s Big Dream, a story about a young girl living in Ghana who works on overcoming challenges with stuttering to achieve her dreams. It is designed for students in kindergarten through second grade, and teachers can easily adapt the materials to best fit the needs, abilities, and interests of their students.
This guide is jam-packed with activities, reproducibles, research projects, experiments, writing prompts, and arts and crafts – all aligned to learning standards. Additionally, there are many opportunities for children to learn about important social-emotional topics including empathy, kindness, determination, and courage.
All the activities are designed to allow children to express themselves and demonstrate their understanding of topics in multiple domains. Specifically, this guide can be integrated into curriculum for:
English Language Arts (ELA) & Writing
Science
Math
Drama/Social-Emotional Learning
Arts and Crafts
Social Studies
Guide Description
Coloring Book Description
Abena dreams of being like the other kids in her class, but her stutter makes it so hard to fit in. Can Abena find a way to overcome her challenge and win over her classmates? Perfect for younger readers, this simplified version of Abena’s story contains 21 black-and-white drawings. So grab your crayons and start making your very own art today!