(cheerful guitar music) - Hello, little learners.

Welcome back to Camp Read-a-Lot, the place where we read books, sing songs, and keep the learning going all summer long.

My name is Ms. Lara.

Can you tell me your name?

I love hearing your names in the morning.

I hope that you got enough sleep.

Shall we start our day with our morning song?

Okay, here we go.

Ready, Ms. Maria?

♪ Good morning, good morning ♪ ♪ It's a sunshine kind of day ♪ ♪ Come join Ms. Lara for some learning and some play ♪ ♪ Will we sing a song ♪ Of course we will.

♪ Make our brains strong ♪ Like super strong.

♪ So come along ♪ ♪ Yes, come on friends, for some learning and some play ♪ Are you ready to get our day started?

Okay, Ms. Maria, I'm gonna put you back here, and we're gonna walk through our day.

We have so much to do.

All right, we're gonna start our day today by reading a whole new book.

Can you guess what it is?

Yes, it's about a bat named Stellaluna, and this bat is so silly, it tries to be a bird.

Now all this week, we've been learning about being yourself.

I wonder what lesson Stellaluna is gonna learn.

And then we're gonna watch our video story, and retell our story before we make grasshoppers to eat.

Of course, we're gonna make that, and a batty fruit salad, so I hope you stay till the very end.

But right now I think I hear, hmm.

What is that?

Is that the doorbell?

(doorbell rings) It is!

Ms. Maria, our mail person, left some mail.

So let's read our letter.

Now, you'll remember, boys and girls, that when we read, we start reading on the right, and we go to the left.

So let's start here.

This, oops, sorry.

♪ This is the left ♪ (snaps fingers) ♪ This is the right ♪ (snaps fingers) ♪ When we read, we start at the left ♪ ♪ And slide to the right ♪ (snaps fingers) Oh, Ms. Lara got all mixed up.

I'm glad you boys and girls at home are there to correct me.

So let's read our letter.

"Dear Ms. Lara, have I got a story for you!"

Oh, I love a good story.

"I heard you were learning about being your true self."

We are, aren't we, boys and girls?

"Well, I am a fruit bat, and I tried to be a bird."

Oh, no.

"Imagine that."

I don't know.

I don't think it's very good to be anything other than who you're meant to be.

Now, I think Ms. Maria left a story for us about loving who you are.

So let's read that together before we read about Stellaluna, our fruit bat who tried to be a bird.

So this story is by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell.

They're the authors, and there's two of them.

They wrote the words.

It's called "I'm Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem."

So let's read the book.

Here we go.

It says, "I'm gonna like me when I jump out of bed from my giant big toe to the braids on my head.

I'm gonna like me when I grin and I see the space in my mouth where two teeth used to be."

Whoo.

Are you missing any teeth?

"I'm gonna like me wearing flowers and plaid.

I have my own style.

I don't follow some fad."

Ooh, if you can see that picture, she's walking a runway looking super cool.

"I'm gonna like me when I climb on and wave, as the bus pulls away, and I'm feeling so brave.

I'm gonna like me when I'm called on to stand.

I know all my letters like the back of my hand.

I'm gonna like me when my answer is wrong.

Like thinking my ruler was 10 inches long.

I'm gonna like me when I'm sharing my lunch, 'cause just like bananas, friends come in a bunch.

I'm gonna like me when I jump up so high, I'll twist and I'll stretch straight up to the sky.

I'm gonna like me when I fall and get hurt and mess up my elbows in pebbles and dirt.

I'm gonna like me when I don't run so fast, then they pick teams and I'm chosen last."

That happens sometimes.

Doesn't it?

"I'm gonna like me when I do the right thing.

And return what I found, and what, it's a ring?

I'm gonna like me when I'm feeling strong.

I'll walk with a smile, arms swinging, legs long.

I'm gonna like me when I sit with my mom and make a get well card for my sick friend, Tom."

That's a very nice thing to do.

"I'm gonna like me when I get something new.

Even if Grandma makes octopus stew."

I wonder if you're gonna like yourself when we make grasshoppers to eat later.

Well, I hope so.

"I'm gonna like me when I make a mistake and put out the candles on Dad's birthday cake.

I'm gonna like me when I open the box and smile and say 'Thanks,' even though I got socks."

Do you like to get socks as a present?

Oh, that happens to me every Christmas.

"I'm gonna like me when I try a new task, I bring in a plate before I am asked.

I'm gonna like me when I clean in a flash and play with my brother and take out the trash.

I'm gonna like me when I cuddle up tight and know as I'm sleeping, I'm safe and all right.

I'm gonna like me 'cause I'm loved and I know it, and liking myself is the best way to show it.

I'm gonna like me.

I already do.

But enough about me.

How about you?"

What do you think, boys and girls?

Do you love who you are?

Sometimes it takes a little time to find out who that is.

Right now, we're gonna watch a story of a little bat who struggled with finding out who she was.

We're gonna see how she fixed her problem.

Let's watch together.

(dreamy harp music) It's story time.

"Stellaluna," by Janell Cannon, retold by Ms. Lara.

(gentle music) "In a forest far, far away, there lived a mother fruit bat and her new baby.

Mother Bat loved her tiny baby, and named the baby Stellaluna.

One night, as Mother Bat followed the heavy scent (owl hooting) of ripe fruit, an owl spied her.

A powerful owl swooped down upon the bats.

(bats screech) Mother Bat tried to escape, (owl hooting) but the owl struck again and again, knocking Stellaluna into the air.

Down, down Stellaluna went, until she landed head first in a soft, (Stellaluna thuds) Downy nest, (birds chirping) startling the three birds who lived there.

'What was that?'

cried Flap.

'I don't know, but it's hanging by its feet,' chirped Flitter.

'Sh.

Here comes Mama,' hissed Pip.

Mama Bird returned with food for her babies.

Stellaluna was hungry, but not for the crawly things Mama Bird brought.

Finally, the little bat couldn't take it anymore.

She climbed into the nest, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth, and in popped a big green grasshopper.

(grasshopper crunches) Stellaluna learned to be like the birds.

She stayed awake all day, and slept at night.

She ate bugs, even though they tasted awful.

(birds chirping) Her bat ways were quickly disappearing.

One day, Stellaluna and the birds decided to sleep hanging by their feet.

When Mama Bird came back, she screamed.

(bird screams) 'Get back here this instant.

You're going to break your necks.'

They didn't hang from their feet when they slept any more.

One day, Mama Bird told them it was time to learn to fly.

One by one, Pip, Flitter, Flap, and Stellaluna jumped from the nest.

Their wings worked.

(wings flapping) 'I'm just like them,' thought Stellaluna.

'I can fly too.'

But Stellaluna had trouble landing on the branches.

(wings flapping) She was embarrassed that she wasn't graceful like the birds.

The next day, Pip, Flitter, Flap, and Stellaluna went flying far from home.

Stellaluna flew further than the rest.

One day, another fruit bat began sniffing Stellaluna's fur.

(bat sniffing) It was Stellaluna's mother.

She had survived the owl attack.

Mother Bat wrapped her wings around Stellaluna.

She said, 'Come with me.

I'll show you where to find the most delicious fruit.

You'll never have to eat another bug again.'

Stellaluna flew back (birds chirping) to the nest, and asked her bird friends to come with her to meet her bat family, But Pip, Flitter, and Flap couldn't fly at night.

'They're going to crash!'

gasped Stellaluna.

'I have to rescue them.'

She lifted them onto a branch.

'I wish you could see in the dark too,' said Stellaluna.

'We wish you could land on your feet,' said the birds.

Even though they were very different, they were still the best of friends, and that was a fact.

The end.

(cheerful music) Hey, boys and girls.

How did you like that story of Stellaluna, the little bat that tried to be a bird, and realized that being a bat is the best thing of all, isn't it?

Now remember, you can check out more stories on the Sora app, and your local library, with lots of fun characters that are learning to become who they really are.

So right now, we're gonna work on a foundational skill, which is comprehension.

Now, parents, any time that you read a story, it's a good idea to put the book away, and ask your child what they remember about the story.

This will help them retain all of the key details in the text, which is a skill they're going to need as they move up grade levels.

Hey, so right now, let's retell "Stellaluna."

Let me sing my retell song.

It goes like this.

♪ When I retell a book to a teacher or a friend ♪ ♪ I tell the beginning and the middle and the end ♪ ♪ First, next, last are the words that help me out ♪ ♪ When I read my favorite book ♪ ♪ I tell what it's about ♪ So our book is "Stellaluna."

Do you remember what happened first?

There was a little bat baby and a mama bat, and the mama that loved Stellaluna, her bat baby, and cuddled her right underneath her wings, and was flying.

Now as they were flying through the air, something happened that separated the mama bat from the baby bat.

Do you remember what it was?

That's right.

An owl came and attacked the bats.

And it kept attacking until Mama Bird didn't know what to do, and Stellaluna fell, fell, fell.

But did she fall in the ground?

No, she was saved by a Downy nest, and in the nest, there were three birds, and Stellaluna got really hungry, and she didn't know what else to do, so she pretended to be a bird, and Mama Bird came over and fed Stellaluna some grasshoppers, but did she like the grasshoppers?

No, bats don't eat grasshoppers.

Do they?

But she ate it.

She had no other choice.

Crunch, crunch, munch, munch, and next, the baby Stellaluna tried to get the birds to hang upside down on the nest.

Now that's not something birds do, so Mama Bird came over and said, "You're going to break your necks," and said, "You have to follow the rules if you're gonna stay in my nest, Stellaluna."

And Stellaluna felt embarrassed.

Then she flew away.

And who did she find on her travels?

Her mom.

Mama Bat had survived the owl attack, and Mama Bat and Baby Bat were so happy to be reunited.

And at the very end, the birds flew to meet Mama back, but they remembered they couldn't see in the dark.

So Stellaluna saved them, and they realized that even though they were different, they could still be friends.

And it was important to be who they really were.

All right.

So I'd love for you to retell the story with me.

And I always like to leave you with a little project that you can do at home that will help you continue the learning around the story.

So let's go to the project place.

Here we go.

Can you guess what we're going to make today?

Do you remember in the story, there was a bat, and the bat loved to eat what?

Mangoes, delicious, ripe fruit.

So they eat a mango, and this, boys and girls, is what a mango looks like.

Have you ever seen one before?

It looks like this.

It could be orange, or it could also be green, like this, and it's kind of squishy, and inside, there's a very large seed.

So I thought today we would make a fruit salad for our bat, Stellaluna.

So I have different fruits that I have around the house here that we're gonna cut together.

Now you can use a grownup knife like this that's very sharp, but you're gonna need a grownup to help you with that.

Or if the fruit is soft enough, you can actually use a plastic knife, like this.

So that's what I'm gonna try to do.

So we're gonna cut our fruit, and put it in our bowl.

And then we're gonna pretend to be bats, and eat it up.

Does that sound like a plan?

After we make our snack for Stellaluna, well, of course, we can't leave our bird friends out.

So we're gonna make tiny grasshoppers.

Ooh.

Are you excited to try them?

Out of celery and peanut butter.

Sh.

They're not real grasshoppers.

So that way, we make food for our bird friends and for our bat friends.

Okay.

Let's start with our banana.

Now, making recipes together with your family is a great way to learn how to read, isn't it?

Because you have to read all of the ingredients.

You have to follow directions, and then you usually get to eat something yummy at the end, unless you make boiled spinach.

Ugh.

Not so yummy.

Okay.

Here's our banana.

How many parts shall we cut it into?

How about, well, I don't know.

Let's see.

How about let's try 10.

Count with me, okay?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

Oh, we still have some banana left.

I wonder how many more slices we can make.

Let's put it in there for our bat.

11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

Now I wonder if bats eat bananas.

I don't think they do.

Well, can you let me know, please?

All right, next, we have an apple.

Now for the apple, this is kind of a harder fruit.

So you would need a grownup to help you start it by cutting it with a knife.

Now, of course, you know, boys and girls, you don't play with sharp knives.

The only knives that you really should use are these plastic ones, because you can get cut.

And I will tell you, I am learning to be myself.

I have learned that I am not a good cook.

I have cut myself many times trying to cook a meal for my family.

So I'm going to cut up my apple like this, into different slices.

I love eating apples.

Apples with peanut butter is my favorite.

Maybe I'll cut it into squares.

If you're making this fruit salad with me, well, you try cutting your apples into triangles.

That would be silly.

Huh?

All right.

I'm gonna add some apples to my bananas.

Maybe another slice here.

And then we'll try to cut open our mango.

I want you to see what's inside.

Now let's see.

Cutting some slices here, going down.

Do you like to eat fruit?

What's your favorite, I wonder?

Do you like plums?

Have you ever tried kiwi?

I don't know.

I love kiwi, and I was scared to try it, because it looks like an exotic kind of strange fruit, but it's actually really sweet.

Okay, here's our mango.

And you're gonna squeeze it.

If you have a mango at home, do you remember in the story, Stellaluna's mom followed the aroma of the ripe mangoes?

I want you to try to smell the mango, and tell me what it smells like.

(inhales sharply) Hmm.

Very sweet.

Now imagine a bunch of them put together.

What would that smell like?

Hmm.

I wonder if bats smell the same way that humans smell.

Do you think you can find out for me?

Do some research and let me know.

Okay, again, I'm using my grownup knife, but I think this might be soft enough to where I can use my plastic one.

Ooh, it is.

I'm gonna peel the outside of the mango, because you don't really eat that part.

Although some people do, I just couldn't.

Some people bite into mangoes like apples.

They eat the whole rind, the whole peel, and everything.

All right.

Let's try to cut a slice of mango.

Now, as I'm cutting, I'm noticing that the mango is very juicy, and it is very sticky.

I think that means it's very sweet too.

I wonder when bats eat mangoes, if they get juice all over their face, and they're sticky, so their fur must be sticky, huh?

I'm gonna add some more mangoes in here.

I'm going to cut one more slice before we move on to our grasshopper.

Hey, let's cut one more slice.

I think I'm gonna use the grownup knife just for time.

Now, you'll notice when you're cutting it, or when you see an adult cutting it, that the mango actually has a very large seed in the middle.

So it looks like it would be a lot of fruit, but depending on the size of the seed, which is very hard, it can be a lot, or it cannot be.

So let me cut this little piece of peel right off, flesh.

I'm gonna keep going.

Whew, lots of slice.

Okay, and we have our bat fruit salad that you can have with your breakfast.

I hope you give it a try.

Now that we've made our bat a snack, we're going make our bird a snack.

Now to make our bird a snack, we're going to need some celery.

So this is what a celery stalk looks like.

And actually, this one has the ends trimmed off.

You're gonna want the really big ones.

It has a lot of leaves, and I've never seen a celery plant.

I've always just seen them at the grocery store.

So I'm gonna have to go look up what one of those looks like.

So the first thing you need to do is you're gonna cut out a body for the grasshopper.

So that's what I did there.

And then I'm going to cut out some antennae.

So to do that, I'm gonna take a piece of celery, and cut it into a very thin strip.

Now for this, you are definitely gonna want some parent help.

Show them this video and give them the idea.

Say, "I want grasshoppers for lunch.

Ms. Lara said."

All right.

So you have your two antennae right here.

And I bet you're wondering, how are you gonna stick them on?

So you're gonna cut a little hole using the sharp end of your knife, like that.

I'm gonna try to make it tiny there, and then shove the antennas in.

Now things I know about grasshoppers is they are insects, and they probably don't like to be eaten.

I wouldn't like to be eaten if I was an insect.

All right.

They also make noise at night, huh?

Let's see, there goes the front.

Now, if you'll see, in my example, I used peanut butter to kind of glue on some legs, and my legs kind of shriveled up.

I think that gave them a more realistic look.

So if you want realistic legs, kind of leave these little strips out for a while, and they'll shrivel up, and they'll look like real grasshoppers.

That'll be fun.

Okay, so here, so I'm gonna cut some more strips for the legs.

Mm.

They're a little bit long.

This is not a daddy long legs spider, it's a grasshopper.

All right, so here I have my two little legs, as you can see, tiny ones.

And then how might I glue them on?

I'll do my favorite peanut butter.

You can use frosting as well.

If you are allergic to peanut butter, frosting works.

Although they sell nut-free peanut butter now, I've seen at the grocery store.

So for those of you that can't have nuts, lots of options.

Gonna put my legs on there, stick 'em on.

And then I need some back legs, and then I'll show you what it looks like.

So let's get the back legs.

Now for the back legs.

I noticed that grasshoppers, their back legs kind of have a little curve to them.

So to make that, I kind of cut it almost in half, so it has a little bend, like this.

And then I glued it on with some peanut butter.

Peanut butter is my favorite kind of glue.

It's glue you can eat, huh?

All right.

We're gonna put that on right there.

And because of time, I'm gonna show you what my grasshopper is looking like.

So there you go, boys and girls, I hope that you try this.

Now we have food for our bat friend, fruit, yum, mango.

And we have food for our bird friends.

Now, as you eat this, you can pretend I'm gonna be a bat, I'm gonna be a bird, and retell the story.

And if you try it, of course, send me a picture, a little note here at the station.

My friends will put the address down below.

It looks like we have just enough time to sing our song and say goodbye.

So are you ready?

Here we go.

Oh, my letter's gonna be sticky with mango.

♪ A, B, see you later ♪ ♪ D, E, F ♪ ♪ G, I'm gonna miss ya ♪ ♪ H, I have to go now ♪ ♪ J, K, bye-bye now ♪ ♪ L, M, N ♪ ♪ Oh, I had a good time ♪ ♪ P, Q, are you gonna miss me ♪ ♪ S, T, you are my best friend ♪ ♪ V, W, X, Y, Z ♪ That's right.

It's time to end our day.

I will Z you tomorrow, boys and girls.

Now remember, if you want to continue to read the story "Stellaluna," check it out at your local library.

I'm gonna be reading it here live tomorrow, so you can read along with me if you have a copy.

Tomorrow, we're gonna make a bat out of our hand prints, and we're gonna play a beginning sound game.

So I hope that you come back then.

Ms. Lara sends you a big squeeze, a big smooch, and reminds you to use your imagination every day.

Goodbye.

(cheerful music)