Tag: creative writing

This Moose Belongs to Me, by Oliver Jeffers

Did you ever have a pet as a child? In this children’s read-aloud, we meet Wilfred.

Wilfred is a small boy, who owns a very big moose.

Or, does he?

As the readers turn the pages, they discover that maybe Wilfred’s moose doesn’t belong to him as much as Wilfred thinks he does.

Wilfred names his moose. Wilfred has a list of rules he expects his moose to follow. Wilfred and his moose do all kinds of things together…until they come across someone else who seems to think Wilfred’s moose actually belongs to them!

This doesn’t go over well with Wilfred. He gets angry and embarrassed by his apparent misunderstanding of who the moose belongs too and takes off on his own.

In the heat of the moment, Wilfred finds himself in quite a predicament. He is stuck with no one to help him.

Then much to his surprise, alongs comes HIS moose.

Thank goodness!

Once Wilfred was on his feet again, Wilfred and the moose came to an understanding about the terms of ownership.

If you’ve ever had a pet, or thought you had a pet, you may relate to Wilfred and his ordeal with his moose. This funny book would be fun to read to primary students to see and hear their reactions to the boy who owned a moose. The potential discussions that could happen as students are asked what they think it is like to have a moose as a pet would be both interesting an enlightening. I mean, who doesn’t have a moose – right?

I would use this book in the classroom to preface a discussion about rules and boundaries. This story offers an opportunity to talk about what is realistic and what is not. While the author provides exaggerated scenarios between Wilfred and the moose, the students can imagine what kind of animal they would want to call their own. Using their imagination, students can choose an animal and write their own rules for what they expect their animal to do. What will they do if their animal doesn’t follow the rules? Students can be asked to think about where the animal will live and what it will eat. Will they name their animal? How will they pick a name? What would you name a moose, if it belonged to you? Did Wilfred do the right thing when he found out someone else claimed the moose belonged to them? What should he have done? What would you do?

Ideas for Classroom Incorporation of This Moose Belongs to Me:

  • ELA: creative writing, brainstorming, descriptive language
  • Social/Emotional: rules and personal boundaries, recognizing emotions, appropriate coping strategies
  • SCIENCE: animal identification and characteristics, habitat
  • RESEARCH: What do animals need to eat? Where do they live? Do they make good pets?

The Whisper, by Pamela Zagarenski

There once was a little girl who loved stories, she loved how the words and pictures took her to new and secret places that existed in a world all her own. – The Whisper

Pamela Zagarenski has written and illustrated a magical picture book about a little girl who borrows a very special book from her teacher’s bookshelf, only to find that the words have disappeared from the pages. Broken hearted, the little girl begins to cry when a soft whisper encourages her to use her imagination to create her own story as she reads the magical picture book.

As the little girl begins to use her imagination, the story she is creating continues to grow and grow. She imagines characters and music and food and a party. She imagines a beginning, a middle, and an end. She imagines conversations about cake, wizards, talking tigers, and enormous white whales. With every page the little girl turns, she imagines the most magnificent stories that captivates her long into the night.

The next day the girl prepares to return to school with her teacher’s book when a fox stops her to return the words that had fallen out of the book she borrowed. Rushing on to school, the little girl tells her teacher about the fox and the words and the stories she had imagined, grateful for the adventure she had experienced.

I love this book! I love how the author creates not only visually pleasing illustrations but strings words together to tell the story of the little girl who listens to the whisper encouraging her to use her imagination.

This book would be an excellent choice to encourage students to explore wordless picture books, or venture into creative writing and illustrating. This book could be easily paired with an interesting picture prompt for students to exercise their own imagination and story telling skills. Young children are great story tellers, and this book pairs well with a lesson to develop writing skills as students consider what elements are needed for a well developed story. Whether it is used to introduce writing, or to refresh creative writing interest, this book has great potential for use in the classroom.

Ideas for Classroom Incorporation of The Whisper

  • ELA: creative writing, writing structure, story elements, visualization, imagery, figurative language, fiction, personification, types of books