Favorite Stories: Room on the Broom!

Currently, my favorite Halloween book is Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson! My students always love the whimsical story, lively illustrations and the rhythm of the text almost feels musical when read aloud (There is, in fact, a musical version that can be heard HERE!).

I always read the book a few times, do a little dramatic play with some props and then towards the end of the week I show the short animated movie - the kids really love this story!

Since the story is repetitive, it great for having the children join in while reading and to work on retelling skills afterwards. I really wanted my students to be able to engage with this story over and over again in new and different hands-on ways, so I created a few activities to go with it - they can be found HERE. 

My students' absolute FAVORITE activity is this Build & Balance Retelling activity: 

Students have to balance the broom by carefully stacking the storytelling props on top of each other. I created several printable options including foldable picture props, pictures to attach to wooden blocks (or these BLOCKS), or pictures sized for DUPLO type blocks. Several options make for quick and easy differentiation! 

The foldable stacking pieces are the easiest to balance and the quietest, but are more fragile than the pictures sized for wooden blocks. The Duplo pictures are great for adding to your building area and they stick together so there isn't really much balancing, just building. 

Build it up, but don't knock it down! 

For older students, I added some worksheet options to go with the activities including pages for retelling, creative writing, problem solving, main idea and story elements. There are MANY different options for each, which makes for easy differentiation! 

I also collected these great dramatic play props so that the children can act out the story!

A Few of My Favorite Books: Peter Spier

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If there were just one special book that I could have from my childhood it would be People by Peter Spier! I have the fondest childhood memories of repeatedly checking this book out from the library and spending hours examining ther detailed illustrations of people from all over the world. When I finally came across this book in my adult life, I grabbed it up for my own personal collection of children’s literature. Eventually, I found another copy for my classroom and was saddened by the fact that none of my students have connected with it in the same way that I so fondly remember…

That hasn’t stopped me from introducing several of Spier’s books to my students over the years and I still keep a copy of People on the shelf just in case…

Spier’s books are beautifully illustrated with very detailed drawings and often wordless or nearly so. There is always much to talk about when reading his books and someone always seems to notice some new detail in the pictures. I appreciate that the books are sparsely worded which allows me the freedom to interpret the book based on student interests and needs.

Here are a few of my favorite Peter Spier books:

People

Gobble, Growl, Grunt 

Crash, Boom, Bang 

Circus

Noah’s Ark

The Fox went out on a Chilly Night

This one is a great folksong and is fun to sing rather than read. Here's one of my favorite versions of the song (there are many other versions available!):

Rain

We the People

Unfortunately, many of Spier's books are currently out of print. However, I've had good luck finding his books at thrift stores, Amazon used books and on Etsy. Happy hunting!