The Gruffalo

Title: The Gruffalo

Julia Donaldson (Author)

Axel Scheffler (Illustrator)

Comprehension Strategies: Visualizing, Inferring

                       

Arts Modalities: Visual Art, Drama

Summary:

A mouse is taking a stroll through the deep, dark wood when along comes a hungry fox, then an owl, and then a snake. The mouse is smart enough to know he would be a tasty treat, so he describes the gruffalo. Visualize the gruffalo: a creature with terrible claws, terrible tusks, terrible jaws, knobbly knees, turned-out toes, and a poisonous wart at the end of its nose. Wait. Could there really be such a thing as a gruffalo?

Materials:

The Gruffalo

chart with picture of gruffalo (covered for beginning of lesson)

paper

crayons or markers
character masks (optional)

Lesson:

Before you begin reading, show your class the spread of pages in the book that shows the setting.

Activate schema by asking questions such as:

“Have you ever been in the deep, dark wood?”

“What animals live in the forest?”

Discuss the words predator and prey.

Show the cover of the book with the picture of the gruffalo covered.

Explain that as you read the first half of the book, the students should listen for clues that help them visualize what a gruffalo might look like. Read aloud until the gruffalo makes his first appearance.

Have the class help you make a chart similar to the one shown that lists the physical characteristics of the gruffalo.

Tell students to pretend that they have been asked to illustrate the book. How would they draw the gruffalo based on the clues given in the text? Provide time for students to draw and then share their illustrations.

For added fun, play the song from the audio recording of the book. (Available at audible.com. Click the image to go to the recording.)

You can also listen to the song with this youtube link:

Now reveal the gruffalo on your chart and have students compare their drawings with Axel Scheffler's gruffalo.

Read the entire book from start to finish!

During another read aloud time, use the illustrations to have the children practice inferring. Show the students the picture of one of the animals as it approaches the mouse (remember that predator/prey relationship!). Compare to the picture of the animal after Mouse describes the gruffalo. What facial expressions change? How do the animals' movements change from showing confidence to fear? Invite the students to practice making these actions.

These masks are a hit when it comes to retelling and dramatizing the story. Of course, you can use them when leading students through a reenactment. To increase the thinking-skill level, ask a student to choose a character mask. Then interview the character to find out what it was thinking at different points in the story. Click the image to download the masks from Early Learning HQ. 

We went out to the "deep, dark wood!"

This wonderful site also contains finger puppets, word cards, posters and more!

Here's another video worth sharing to your young readers and and writers. Julia Donaldson shares her drafts of the book. Then she delights her audience by singing the gruffalo song with Gruffalo himself!

Can't Sleep Without Sheep

Title: Can’t Sleep Without Sheep

Susanna Leonard Hill (Author)

Mike Wohnoutka (Illustrator)

Classroom Guides by Shannon Morgan

Comprehension Strategies: 
Visualizing, Making Connections                  

Art Modality: Drama

Summary: 
Whenever Ava can’t sleep, she counts sheep. But Ava takes so long to fall asleep, it’s the sheep who are getting tired—until they finally quit! The sheep promise to find a replacement Ava can count on, but it might not be as easy as they think...

In this hilarious take on a familiar bedtime ritual, readers will be charmed by Ava and her fluffy friends. (Summary from book.)

Materials:

Can’t Sleep Without Sheep

Lesson:

Here’s a dreamy way to help your students practice visualizing. Begin the lesson by asking students to describe their own sleep dilemmas and solutions. The main character in the story, Ava, counts sheep. Ask your students to consider this question: What if the sheep got tired of being counted?

Next, read the story aloud, but without sharing the illustrations. Encourage students to visualize each of the animals that the sheep enlist to help Ava fall asleep. Read the story again, this time showing the pictures.

You can count on this dramatic follow-up to awaken your students visualizing skills. For each of the animals in the story, have students consider:

*Is this animal big or small?

*What shape is it?

*Does it have legs? How many?

*How quickly or slowly does it move?

*What sounds does it make?

To dramatize the story, choose a volunteer to be Ava. Invite students to choose an animal to portray from the following choices: sheep, horse, chicken, pig, cow, penguin, hippo, buffalo, flamingo, armadillo or beaver. Line up your cast of characters and reread the story, stopping to assist with dialogue and movement. Get ready for the stampede!

You won’t get tired of this book any time soon, so head over to Susanna Leonard Hill’s website for activities to help you integrate the book into language arts, math, science, social studies, art and drama curricula. The activities are linked to the common core standards.

http://www.susannahill.com/cantsleepwithoutsheep.html

Don’t quit yet! Here’s the trailer...      

http://youtu.be/_5rTzSjGqT4

Over the River: A Turkey's Tale

Title: Over the River: A Turkey's Tale

Derek Anderson (Illustrator)

based on the song by Lydia Maria Child

Comprehension Strategies: Visualizing, Inferring                  

Art Modality: Music

Summary:

Over the River Mama, Papa, and Baby Turkey embark for their vegetarian Thanksgiving feast. But when a hungry boy and his dog start sniffing around, the turkeys have got to think fast before they become the main course! Readers of all ages will be wondering who's going to gobble up whom until the dessert finale. (Summary from www.derekanderson.net.)

Materials:

Over the River: A Turkey's Tale

Lesson:

Thanksgiving is coming up on us like a hound dog on a turkey! Here's a quick side dish for your reading lessons this week. I saw this book at my local big-book-store chain last night. I "gobbled" it up, and thought you might like it, too. The recipe is quick and simple. Just cover the outside of the book. Read or sing the words; then have students discuss, draw or write what they visualized. Reread or resing the story. This time invite students to carefully view the illustrations to discover the story of the turkey family on the way to their feast. Can your students infer how the turkeys are feeling along the way? Now it's time for all your little turkeys to sing along.


Over the river and through the woods, off to the bookstore you go!

For more information about the illustrator:

http://www.derekanderson.net

If You're A Monster and you Know It

Title: If You’re a Monster and You Know It

Rebecca Emberley (Author)

Rebecca Emberley and Ed Emberley (Illustrators)

Comprehension Strategy: Visualizing (Sensory Images)                 

Art Modalities: Music and Movement

Summary:

Children will stomp their paws, twitch their tails, snort and growl, and wiggle and wriggle along with this bright and bold twist on "If You're Happy and You Know It." Rebecca Emberley has written a rollicking text, which she has illustrated in collaboration with her father, Caldecott Medalist Ed Emberley. (Summary from Scholastic.)

Materials:

If You’re a Monster and You Know It

rhythm instruments

Lesson:

We know that visualizing is creating mental images while we read, right? In chapter nine of Strategies that Work, the authors encourage readers to create mental images that go beyond visualizing to include responses like “I see, I hear, I feel, I smell and I taste.” To better imagine this lesson, first listen to this fun audio of If You’re a Monster and You Know It.

www.scholastic.com/ifyoureamonsterandyouknowit

Next, go make friends with your school’s music teacher and ask her if you can borrow a box of rhythm instruments for your reading lesson. (Pick her up off the floor when you leave.)

Reread this story over several days to give your students multiple opportunities to sing and move along. Ask your group to help you list the actions in the song:

*snort and growl

*smack your claws

*stomp your paws

*twitch your tail

*wiggle your warts

*give a roar

Next invite children to explore the different sounds that the instruments make. Ask questions like, “Which of the instruments makes a sound like snorting and growling? Which instrument’s sound would remind you of smacking your claws? Which instrument’s sound could represent stomping your paws?” Give volunteers an opportunity to match each action with an instrument. As you sing along, pause to play the instrument with the actions. Can you visualize this lesson? Can you hear the fun? Can you feel the beat? Great. If you’re happy and you know it, buy this book!

She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain

Title: She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain

Jonathan Emmett (Author)

Deborah Allwright (Illustrator)

Comprehension Strategy: Visualizing

Art Modality: Movement/Music

Summary:

Forget everything you know about who’s comin’ ’round that mountain! This pink-pajama-wearing, jelly-jar-juggling, rooftop-dancing cowgirl is sure to charm the spurs off any rancher, and tickle the funny bone of the most ornery varmit. This classic song has brand-new verses and enough “tee-hees,” “toot-toots,” and “squish-splats” to keep kids singin’, shoutin’, and reading again and again. (Summary from book.)

Materials:

She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain

copier

card stock

Lesson:

Yee-haw, y’all! This book has a built-in in music and movement motivator. Just check out the back pages; then gallop over to a color copier to enlarge and copy the movement cards. Why? Well let’s just whoa-back to the beginning of the lesson.

Begin by reading...er, make that singing aloud each verse of the song. Encourage students to visualize the details of each verse before showing them the illustrations. Your students will get some great practice creating images in their minds as you sing about the cowgirl wearing pink pajamas and juggling jelly.

Next use the movement cards you created to encourage students to move and sing along. After several group rounds, you might want to divide the class into eight groups to represent the eight verses. Time to round up some reading fun!

Take a listen to the audio version of the book:

http://www.theaudiobookstore.com/jonathan-emmett/shell-be-coming-round_bkegmt000010.aspx

Find out more about the author at his website:

http://www.scribblestreet.co.uk/

Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum

Title: Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum

Lisa Wheeler (Author)

Laura Huliska-Beith (Illustrator)

Comprehension Strategy: Visualizing               

Art Modality: Drama

Summary:

After a variety of animals get stuck one by one in bubble gum melting in the road, they must survive encounters with a big blue truck and a burly black bear. (Summary from book.)

Materials:

Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum

pink, plastic tablecloth cut into gum shape (see the cover of the book)

copies of the choral reading (for older readers)

Lesson:

Just when you need a lesson to liven things up, along comes a book like Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum—with ooey-chewy words and an icky-sticky story to get stuck on! After reading the story aloud, I introduced my group to a choral reading of the text. I can’t post the whole chant, but here’s a sneak peak to help you get the idea. (If you drop me an email, I’ll send you the entire choral reading. Just title your message “Bubble Gum” and send to jaynestamp@cox.net.)

Teacher:

Bubble gum, bubble gum,

Chewy-gooey bubble gum,

Icky-sticky bubble gum

Melting in the road.

Group 1:

Along comes a toad...

A fine, fat toad,

A fine, fat, wild

Splat!

Wart-backed toad.

All:

Ew! Yuck! The toad got stuck!

Reading this rhyme is kind of like chewing gum, the more you read, the smoother it gets. For even more fun, try this drama extension. In advance, cut an expensive, pink plastic tablecloth (available from dollar stores) into a bubble-gum shape. Place the shape on the floor of an open area. Select volunteers to be the toad, shrew, goose, bee, crow, black bear and hen. Ask these students to visualize how the animals would move before and after getting stuck in the mud. Read aloud the story as the students pretend to be stuck in the “gum.” When you read the part where the animals blow the bubble, have the students lift the tablecloth in the air as they would a parachute. “Bubble gum, bubble gum, light and lifty bubble gum!”

The toad and the bad-mood shrew are stuck!

They chewed and they chewed....

Along comes a big-bottomed bear!

  

Find out more about the author:

http://www.lisawheelerbooks.com/

Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors

Title:  Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors

2010 Caldecott Honor Book

Joyce Sidman (author), Pamela Zagarenski (Illustrator)

Comprehension Strategy:  Visualizing                        

Art Modalities:  Visual Arts, Poetry

Summary: Color comes alive in this whimsical, innovative book: blue dances on summer lakes, green drips from spring leaves, black wafts mysteriously through autumn evenings. Together, an award-winning poet and a brilliant painter inspire us to look closer at the thrilling colors of the seasons. (Summary from the book.)

Materials:

white art paper

crayons, markers, oil pastels or other art supplies for creating illustrations

Lesson:

Read aloud one page of the book at a time. Encourage students to visualize the objects described in the text. After the students offer guesses to identify the objects, reveal the illustrations and reread the text for the page. Be sure to provide plenty of time for the students to observe and discuss the illustrations and poetic elements in the text. (My students had fun finding the windows and following the white dog through each scene. They also enjoyed finding the crowns on the animals. The more we studied the illustrations under the document camera, the more they noticed. In fact, I discovered many more details with them than I had seen on my own!)

As a poetry writing extension, invite students to create pages for a class seasons book. Lead the group in brainstorming lists of items and animals that are associated with each season. For example, your chart might look like this:

Winter	Spring	Summer	Fall
hot chocolate	Easter egg	suntan lotion	football
gloves	cherry blossoms	lemonade	apple

Model the poetry writing by choosing an item from the list. Have the class help you write a poem describing the item using a style similar to the text of the book. (I found that modeling the poetry writing was important to the success of the students when writing their own poetry.)

Next encourage each child to choose an item. Have each child write a short, free-verse poem describing the item. Type each child's poem so that it fills a page. Then have the child use the appropriate color of marker to write the color of the item on an index card. Tape the index card over the name of the item on the paper to create a flap. (See photos below.) After writing her poem, have each child create an illustration on a separate piece of paper. Mount the poems and illustrations onto construction paper; then bind the pages to create a book. 

For more poetry writing ideas for use with this book, just click this link to visit Joyce Sidman's web page: http://www.joycesidman.com/redsingsTG.html

If your kids enjoy this book, you might want to leave a note from the class in the author's guest book. Here's the link:
http://www.joycesidman.com/guestbook.html