By the end of the fifth session, Joseph has been sold, has reached Egypt and has forgiven his brothers. One thing remains: to dress the story. That's what the coat is for: not to decorate a wall, but to give the hands what the eyes have already read.
What you need (and what you don't)
Five things: the tear-out sheet from the book, coloured pencils or markers, round-tipped scissors, paper tape and ten unhurried minutes. You don't need liquid glue, you don't need glitter and you don't need to print anything. Everything you need is already inside the book.
The best hands-on activity is the one a child can do almost alone, with the adult beside them, not above them.
Start by letting the child colour the coat before cutting. It's easier to paint within the lines while the paper is still whole. Don't correct the colours: if Joseph ends up with one green sleeve and one orange, all the better: Joseph's coat was, precisely, of many colours.
Once cut out, the coat is dressed on a paper figure that also comes from the book. Here's the one adult rule: the tape is yours. Two small strips are enough. When the child dresses the figure and stands it up, the story stands on the table, and that's usually when the best question of the week arrives.
Keep the figure. The following week, when you open the next book in the collection, you'll see why it's worth having a small collection of standing characters on a low shelf. But that's a topic for another article.
