Activities for Teachers with Hans Wilhelm’s books

NOODLES BOOKS

By Hans Wilhelm
Scholastic

Interactive suggestions by Barbara Klein

All Noodles books deal with issues relevant to the lives of young children. Here are some suggestions:

Making Personal Connections:
“This part reminds of ….” Children can verbally share times or things that have happened in their own lives to what they see and read in the book. Children can also represent their personal connections to the story ( Text to Self connections) in a variety of ways. They can draw pictures of their connections. Or children can be allowed to choose from a variety of mediums to represent their connections to the story: drawing, painting, using clay, making a collage, writing, etc. If you want, children can also write down the connection their work shows, and add it to their piece.

Problem and Solution
In each book Noodles faces a certain problem. Then he goes and solves them. Discuss how this works in a couple of books. Then you can create a chart that has three columns:
Book Problem Solution.

Record the title, the problem Noodles has, and how he solves it for several of his books. As you read new Noodles books, add them to your chart. Kids can choose one of the books and illustrate the problem or solutions. If you do this on small pieces of paper, they can be added directly to the chart.

A Part Repeats
After reading a few of these Noodles stories, ask children if they noticed something about it. Tell them there is a part that repeats in each book. “I have an idea!” Go back to the books you have looked at, and notice how this is in each of the books.

“I have an Idea!” Stop and think and make your own predictions
Now that the kids know about the “I have an idea” part, and are aware of the format of the book- that Noodles has a problem, gets an idea and then solves his problem, you can have them start to predict how they might solve the problem. Read one they haven’t heard yet. When you get to the part where Noodles says, “I have an idea!” stop reading. Ask the kids: What would your idea be if you were Noodles? How would you solve this problem?” You can have kids simply turn and talk to their neighbor on the story rug about their idea. Or, send kids back to their worktable to draw and write their idea. Come back, share the ideas, then read the rest of the book and see what Noodles did. You could compile all of the pictures into a class book. Or make it into a display. Since many of the Noodles books deal with difficult social/emotional issues for young children this would lead to some good conversations around the issues in the book- dealing with bullies, or sharing, or listening to the grown-ups, etc.

Character Traits:
After reading some of the Noodles book begin a list or a web of character traits for Noodles. (When I do character webs, I write the name of the character in the middle of a large chart and draw a small circle around it. Then I draw a line off the name and write the trait. I draw another line for each trait, each one coming out from around the circle of the character’s name, and it goes around the chart- it looks like a web.) “What do we know about Noodles? “ (Someone might say something like: he has ideas. Or, he solves problems, etc.) Ask children how they know that; “where in the text do you find evidence that supports that?” If they can support it, write it down. Continue adding character traits for Noodles, but insist that the children support their ideas with evidence in the book. After doing this, you can ask: “How does knowing this about Noodles help us know what he might do in this situation?” As you read another book about him, refer to the chart- “what do you think he might do here? We know he’s a problem solver; he likes to play; he likes to help others, etc. How might he act in this situation?”

To improve the reading and writing skills Mariann Harman suggests graphing the words:
Have children find how many times they see the word “I” in the Noodles book.
You can graph other words and see which word is used most often.
You can also graph by how many words begin with which letter.

Wake Up, Sun!

Written by David L. Harrison
Illustrated by Hans Wilhelm

Interactive suggestions by Maryann Harman

Identify the punctuation marks.
How can you tell someone is speaking?
How many other animals are in the barn? Count them.
What are they doing? Opposites – sleep/awake
How do they feel? Dog is happy; pig is grumpy; How do you know?

To get children to pay attention to details, ask questions about the pictures:
How many windows in the barn?
What shape are they?
Could there be another animal in barn that you are not seeing? Help them here by directing them to look at wheel near rhombus shaped window. Cobwebs.
Deductive reasoning – must be a spider somewhere.
How do you know farmer is talking and not wife?
How does the wife feel?
Why do they think the baby woke the sun?
How many times is the dog with the baby?
What new animals do you see? (frog)
Why is the picture at the end funny? (saddle on cow)
These questions force them to look more deeply into the story for clues, which will aid later on in chapter books or history/science books. Teaches them to look beyond just what is there.

All For the Best!

By Hans Wilhelm
Hampton Road Publishers

Interactive suggestions by Barbara Klein and Hans Wilhelm

This book has extreme vibrant illustrations. You might want to have the kids notice the illustrations, It might be a great time to bring out the watercolors during a free choice time, and see if the children can use watercolors like Hans Wilhelm does!

For older kids this would be a good book to discuss the Author’s Purpose – or author’s message. Lead book discussions by asking questions such as:

What did the author want the reader to walk away with after reading this book?


What is important to this author?


Have you ever had an experience that started off bad but turned out good in the end?


Notice the different strong emotions of the town people versus the carpet weaver.


How do all the figures and animals in the carpet design on the last page connect with the story?

I’ll Always Love You

By Hans Wilhelm
Crown/Random House Publishers

This classic invites discussions on the subject of death.
Allow the children to draw a person or a pet that the child “will always love”. Let them make special a frame for the picture.
It is a great story for a private read to a child who is just now dealing with the loss of a pet.
(P.S. You may want to have some paper tissues handy for yourself. HW)

Hello Sun!

By Hans Wilhelm
Carolrhoda Books

Interactive suggestions by Barbara Klein

This book would work very well for a story retelling, especially if the children are already familiar with this skill. It has a strong story line, and all the story elements are very clear. One way I might do this would be to make a large chart, and fill it in together with the kids:

Characters:
Setting:
Problem:
Events:
Solution:

After filling it in, kids can chose one of these story elements to illustrate. Then it can be combined to make a new book- a retold version of your story!

Another way I have done story retells is to break the kids into 5 small groups (2-3 kids in a group work the best for this). Each group is responsible for one story element. Give each small group a sentence strip; they can put down the information; then they can add some small pictures that go along with their words. For instance, one group works on Characters. They write down all the characters who were in the book—Quentin hedgehog, Charlie Rabbit, Owl, Fox, Squirrel, Beaver, etc. and can add little illustrations. After they have finished, call the class together, and have each small group share out their work, following the story retell format above. Glue down each sentence strip on a large chart paper alongside each story element they are representing. (If there are a lot of kids in the class, you can have 2 small groups working on each story element, so you can create 2 versions. You probably want only 2 or 3 kids to work together, for best management). This really reinforces Story elements, and makes a wonderful display, too.

Hiccups for Elephants

Written by James Preller
Illustrated by Hans Wilhelm
Scholastic

Before reading:
Show the book cover to the class without reading the title. Ask children to guess who has the hiccups. How do they know? (The word HICCUPS is coming from the elephant; animals surrounding the elephant are smiling while the elephant looks dismayed.) Point out the speech balloon. Tell children to look for it as they read the book.

After reading:
Ask children to comment on the book.
What did they like best about it? Have children point out the parts that made the book fun to read. Then ask: Were you surprised by the ending? What were you expecting to happen?

What a character! (Reading—Fantasy vs. Reality):
Discuss which animal in the story children liked best. Have children give examples from the book of why they chose this animal. Then ask children to discuss the way the illustrator portrayed this animal. Would the animal behave this way in real life? Why or why not? Ask children to point out the elements in the story that could not happen in real life.