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Writing inspired by Laura Numeroff

February 8, 2018 Ticia 12 Comments

As a teacher, I loved working with Laura Numeroff’s books. The kids loved listening to her books and the antics of the different animals. My second year teaching I got a stuffed animal of her Mouse from the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books. Now that I have my own kids I was inspired to create a writing unit inspired by Laura Numeroff. It’s a great way to get a writing lesson in for your reluctant writer.

Laura Numeroff inspired writing prompt

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Creating an ‘If You Give’ inspired writing prompt

 I actually don’t have pictures of my kids working on this because I designed it to be completely independent work to do while I’m at Bible study and they are in childcare, so I’ll show you pictures of Superman’s work.  The great thing about this project is you can easily adapt it to either early writing or still just drawing pictures student.
pictures of the pages for if you give writing prompts
There are four pages of writing prompts. First, they’ll pick one of her books and write/draw a review of the book. Next, they’ll brainstorm an animal and something their animal might do. The last two pages are planning out your steps, first the thing they’ll choose to do, and second how they think of it (describing words).

Superman’s version of the If You Give writing prompt

 If you give a pig a party writing assignment fixed
First, he went through and wrote out what happened in the story he read, he chose If You Give a Pig a Party, and got the highlights of the steps in the circle.
For those who are not familiar, the “If You Give books” are circle books. They end the same as they began.
if you give a mouse a cookie activity fxied
Next, they chose an animal and they were supposed to think of words that started with the same letter.  You can see not all of Superman’s words start with the same letter, and that’s okay.  The goal was to get him thinking.
 create a if you give a storyboard edit
Next, he took the storyboard sheet and planned the sequence of events for his story.  He gave me a very long explanation, but I’m guessing his dog drove a car, rode a skateboard, and had a lot of fun.
brainstorm words to use in your if you give a story fixed
The final step was to brainstorm words to use in your story.  Superman went through and chose some words that looked promising from the story he read, which wasn’t my intent, but it’s a good way for early writers to get some confidence and move forward in their writing, so I’m not going to complain at all.
This process gets your kids closer and closer to having a rough draft without it being a scary process.  They all really enjoyed coming up with story ideas and gave me some great stories.
If you’d like to get the printable I made, click on the link:
If You Give a Writing Unit

I’m joining with several other great bloggers to share our takes on a different theme each month, check out how the other bloggers approached this theme and then create your own version:Enchanted Homeschooling Mom – Life with Moore Babies – Teach Beside Me – The Usual Mayhem – Growing Book by Book – Adventures in Mommydom – Afterschool for Smarty Pants

writing unit for the If You Give books by Laura Numeroff

More writing ideas for you to try

Is Pluto a planet
Marco Polo writing prompts and rubric
teaching young kids how to compare texts
Danny and the Dinosaur printable
how to write a fable with printable rubric
  • Comparing texts with early writers
  • Danny and the Dinosaur writing prompt
  • How to write a fable lesson
  • Is Pluto a planet writing assignment
  • Marco Polo writing prompts

reading and writing Poppins Book Nook, printable, writing

Comments

  1. Natalie says

    September 30, 2013 at 11:12 am

    How fun! I love how your assignments always allow for so much creativity from your learners. We loved this series when daughter was a little younger…

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      October 1, 2013 at 10:30 pm

      Pure survival I assure you. A simple matching activity results in large amounts of line drawing. It really cracks me up, and I also now feel sorry for the teachers I did that too.

  2. Ashley says

    September 30, 2013 at 1:06 pm

    Very cute, and it is nice that it is open ended to allow creativity! We love those books too!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      October 1, 2013 at 10:30 pm

      Those books just make me smile.

  3. Christy says

    September 30, 2013 at 1:42 pm

    I love the If You Give books, and so do my kids. Kate is obsessed with them and asks for them all the time!

    I saw that you mentioned Wayside School in a comment on Natalie’s post — funny, Collin is reading that book right now! He’s enjoying it!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      October 1, 2013 at 10:31 pm

      I ADORE that series. It’s one of my absolute favorites. There’s a parallel series about an exchange student who is trying to figure out Wayside math and it is a lot of fun.

  4. Claire says

    October 1, 2013 at 6:03 am

    I love the idea of drawing a story. I think T11 would enjoy that as he would still struggle with fiction writing. Thanks Ticia, another great idea!

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      October 1, 2013 at 10:32 pm

      You’re welcome. You gave me a bit of hope because your guys know so much and are learning so much, but if you’re guys are still not big on writing, then I can relax a little.

  5. Lula B says

    October 1, 2013 at 4:53 pm

    I think my 8yr old would like this format. I often mind-map before I write too. Thank you for the printable 🙂

    Reply
    • Ticia says

      October 1, 2013 at 10:32 pm

      You’re welcome! I go back and forth on mind mapping, sometimes I do, but then sometimes it’s more of the drawing or whatever that inspires me. I’ve discovered very rarely do things I write stay the same as I thought they would in the start.

  6. Jill says

    October 9, 2013 at 9:15 am

    Wonderful idea to promote creativity! Our family loves that entire series. Printing out this unit to use with my children 🙂

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Activities to go with Books by Laura Numeroff says:
    January 7, 2014 at 6:59 am

    […] age kids can use this writing unit from Adventures in Mommydom to write their own “If You Give…” […]

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Ticia Adventures in Mommydom Hi, I'm Ticia! This is the adventures of my family in life and learning. Follow along with us as we share our adventures. We're having a lot of fun and learning as we go.

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