The Gruffalo’s Child
This book is best for:
- adjectives
- describing
- identifying parts of objects
- rhyme
Review
Based on the successful format of the original story, The Gruffalo’s Child follows the adventure of the Gruffalo’s daughter as she goes in search of the Big Bad Mouse that her dad warned her about. Along the way she is greeted by three different animals a snake with a long tail, an owl with big bright eyes and a fox with long whiskers. Once again the mouse comes out on top with his fast thinking and trickery.
The Gruffalo’s Child is a fantastic rhyming book that will capture little ones’ attentions with its engaging illustrations and relatable characters. The repetitive phrases, such as, "the snow fell fast, and the wind blew wild, ‘I'm not scared,’ said the Gruffalo's Child." allow children to join in with the story and anticipate rhyming words. This picture book is also ideal for targeting describing through the use of adjectives, such as “deep dark wood” and “big bad mouse”.
For further speech and language targets in the Gruffalo’s Child, see the list below.
Book Details
Narrative Structure: Descriptive Sequence ; Complex Episode
Story Plot: Conquering The Monster ; Journey Tale ; Repetitive Tale
Themes:
- animals
- monsters
- places - forest
- tricks
Speech and Language Targets
Speech Sounds:
- /b/ - big, bad, boulder, bored, terrible
- /d/ - deep, dark, dad, shadow, bad, child, wood, wind
- /l/ - look, little, Gruffalo, terrible, tail, trail, fell
- /m/ - mouse, marks, moon, home
- /r/ blends - trail, treetop, track, tree, trick, drink, friend, Gruffalo, ground, creature, brave, prints, strong
- /s/ - mouse, house
- /s/ blends - scaly, scared, snowy, snake, snore, small, smile, slid, slunk, strong, scratch
- /t/ - tail, terribly, tough, tiptoe, treetop, little, footprint, short, wait, out, bright, nut
- /w/ - wood, why, whiskers, wiry, wind, wild, somewhere, twig
Grammar:
- adjectives
- conjunctions (and)
- negatives (not)
- regular past tense
- irregular past tense verbs (fell, blew, said)
- plurals
- possessive nouns
- possessive pronoun (his)
- subjective pronoun (you)
- action verbs
Semantics:
- matching
- labelling
- identifying parts
- describing
- differences
- similarities
- predicting
- figurative language: similes (like pools of terrible fire, tougher than wire)
- figurative language: personification (the wind blew wild)
Concepts:
- descriptive concepts (big, little, bright)
- location concepts (in, on, under, out)
Narrative:
- traditional opening
- character description
- time
- setting
- weather
- initiating event
- problem
- plans
- feelings
- resolution
- moral
- dialogue
- direct character speech
- repetition for emphasis
Rhyme & Sound Awareness:
- rhyme
Book Info
Published by Penguin Books Australia in 2007 (ISBN: 9780142407547)