Story Explorers Introductory Narrative
Connie and Max discover a magic book that transports them into the book’s stories.
Ogre’s Cottage
Vocabulary Activity
The children explore the
cottage and learn vocabulary
from the themes home and
food.
Story Narrative
The ogres come home to
discover the children asleep in
the ogres’beds.The children
appease the angry ogres by
making them a stew.
Phonemic Awareness
Activity
The children identify words
with particular phonemes to
add to the stew.
Syntax Activity
The unhappy ogre chases the
children from the house.To
escape across a river, the
children must jump on logs to
build sentences.
Vocabulary Activity
The children explore the
island and learn vocabulary
from the themes nature and
animals.
Story Narrative
The children find a farm, catch
fish for dinner, and sleep
under the stars.The next day,
pirates arrive to raid the island.
Phonemic Awareness
Activity
To stop the pirates, the children
throw bananas at items that
have particular phonemes.
Syntax Activity
The pirates chase the children
to the beach.To escape to
another island, the children
must jump on turtles to build
sentences.
Banana Island
Vocabulary Activity
The children explore the
western town and learn
vocabulary from the themes
neighborhood and transportation.
Story Narrative
The town is deserted—the
townspeople are hiding from
Shady Sue.The children chase
her around town, narrowly
missing her each time.
Phonemic Awareness
Activity
The children identify words
with particular phonemes to
round up stampeding chickens.
Syntax Activity
To cross a canyon and catch
Shady Sue, the children must
jump on tumbleweeds to
build sentences.
Story Comprehension
Activity
Connie records the adventure
for the town newspaper by
answering questions about
the story.
Old Cody Town
Story Comprehension
Activity
Connie records the adventure
in her journal by answering
questions about the story.
Story Comprehension
Activity
Connie records the adventure
in her journal by answering
questions about the story.
The children complete the adventure and find themselves back home again.
Vocabulary Activity: Students acquire vocabulary through the exploration of objects on the screen.
When students are ready, the exploration activity is followed by a word search activity when
students press the B button on the Leapster handheld. In Level 1, optional language support is
available to provide the vocabulary words in both Spanish and English.
Story Narrative: Narratives provide context for the vocabulary and theme. Narratives encourage
active listening and comprehension skills such as using background knowledge, identifying main
idea, and paying attention to detail, context cues, and nonverbal cues. Elements of story structure
such as character, setting, plot, and story sequence are also identified to enhance comprehension.
Phonemic Awareness Activity: Students identify target phonemes to build awareness of English
sounds that are uncommon in Spanish.
Syntax Activity: Using vocabulary introduced in earlier activities, students are introduced to
syntactical patterns, such as sentences with prepositional phrases. Repetition of sentences such as
He is a boy or He sits on the chair helps students internalize the patterns.
Story Comprehension Activity: Students respond to questions of increasing difficulty about the
narrative section.
Activities