Wombat Stew


Written by Marcia Vaughan
Illustrated by Pamela Lofts

For ages 4 to 7

Get this book
This book is best for:
  • character description
  • adjectives
  • plurals

Review

In this classic Australian book, a clever dingo catches a wombat and decides to make wombat stew. Lucky for the wombat, the other bush animals decide to trick dingo in order to save their friend.

The repetitive nature of Wombat Stew really engages children and they very quickly, start joining in with the catchy wombat stew rhyme. The rich descriptive language in this book makes it a good choice when targeting adjectives and character description. This book can also be used to target plurals as the bush animals trick Dingo into putting lots of feather, flies and insects into the stew.

See the list below for other possible speech and language targets in Wombat Stew.


Book Details

Narrative Structure: Complete Episode

Story Plot: Wishing Tale

Themes:
  • animals - Australian, insects/mini-beasts, reptiles
  • food/drink
  • places - bush
  • friendship
  • problem solving
  • negotiation

Speech and Language Targets

Speech Sounds:
  • /b/ - billabong, big, blops, billycan, brew, bugs, wombat
  • /ch/ - chewy, crunchy, munchy, lunchy
  • /d/ - dingo, dance, mud
  • /l/ - lizard, billabong, billycan, koala
  • /l/ blends - blue, blops, slide, sleepy, flies
  • /r/ blends - bright, brew, crunchy, creepy, crawlies, cried, grin
  • /s/ blends - stew, stir, stop, snap, scoop, slugs, sleepy
  • /t/ - tail, tongue, wombat, fat
  • /w/ - wombat, water, worry
Grammar:
  • adjectives
  • conjunctions (and, so)
  • negatives (no, can't, haven't)
  • prepositions (in, out, down, around, through)
  • present progressive tense (-ing)
  • objective pronoun (me)
  • subjective pronouns (I, you)
  • regular past tense
  • irregular past tense verbs (caught, dug, sang)
  • action verbs
  • mental verbs
Semantics:
  • labelling
  • identifying parts of animals
  • describing
  • predicting
  • explaining means to a goal
  • identifying obstacles to an action
  • making inferences
Questions:
  • what
Concepts:
  • location (in, out, down, around, through)
  • quantity (all)
Social-Emotional:
  • friendship
  • initiating conversation
  • negotiating
  • problem solving
Narrative:
  • traditional opening
  • character description
  • time
  • setting
  • sequencing
  • initiating event
  • problem
  • plans
  • resolution
  • dialogue
Rhyme & Sound Awareness:
  • rhyme
Book Info

Published by Scholastic Press in 1984 (ISBN: 9781741693621)

To stay updated on the latest and greatest picture books for speech and language development, subscribe to our email newsletter.