I have a birdsong app on my phone. When I tap the recording icon, it listens for birds and tells me their names and other information. It will even play clips of their various chirps and trills. I love how it connects me with the natural world, even when I cannot see the creatures my app and I can hear.
In My City Speaks, Darren Lebeuf invites readers to experience their hometown through their senses. He highlights the many sounds, movements, smells, and tastes that bring a city to life. The child at the center of the story is visually impaired (signified by her use of a mobility cane) and fully engaged with the world around her. She knows and loves her city.
Read the book with children 2+ and explore city life together using your senses and one or more of the following activities.
City moves. The author highlights how things in a city move: quickly and slowly, open and shut, upward in growth, for work and for play. Invite children to take a walk around a city block and notice all the movement around them. At the three-quarter mark, encourage them to switch and notice how their own body is moving. Ask: How do your movements compare with the other city movements you have noticed? Are they faster, slower, or the same? Are they designed to accomplish the same things? Do your movements change in relation to something else’s movement?
City sounds. There are so many sounds in a city! Cars honk, bees buzz, water drips, bells ding, people talk, sirens wail, music carries on a breeze. Invite children to use a phone or another device to record the sounds around them. Then listen to the recording and see if you can identify everything you hear. Or give children a list of sounds often heard in a city and encourage them to find and record them in a sound scavenger hunt.
City smells. Cities offer lots of smells. They may be stinky, sharp, sweet, subtle, or mouth-watering, and people may disagree about whether they are good or bad. Invite children to close their eyes and imagine that they are standing on a street corner. Ask: What do you smell? Then say: Imagine walking down the block and around the corner into an alleyway behind a pizzeria. What do you smell? Third, encourage them to imagine what they can smell walking through a city park. End by asking children what other smells they associate with cities.
City tastes. The girl in the book stops to taste gelato during her walk through the city. Her dad drinks coffee and they purchase fruits and vegetables at a market. Each of these tasty treats help define city life. Invite children to draw a picture of their favorite city treat and share where they get it. It might be a ballgame hotdog, movie popcorn, an ice cream truck popsicle, a favorite sub or shawarma wrap, a chai latte from a cafe, Chinese takeout, or an entree at a fancy restaurant. Encourage them to describe how it tastes so others can imagine enjoying the treat as well.
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