Audrey Wood Book Activities

My favorite memories as a child were reading Audrey Wood’s books. So when I became a teacher, I knew I had to utilize this author’s stories. Below you will find a list of books and activities I have used with my children. These Audrey Wood book activities lists continue to grow. I’ll update as we create more.

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Favorite Audrey Wood Books for Preschool Children

• The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood
• Ten Little Fish by Audrey Wood illustrated by Bruce Wood
• Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood illustrated by Don Wood
• Piggies by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Don Wood
• Silly Sally by Audrey Wood
• The Deep Blue Sea by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Bruce Wood
• Alphabet Rescue by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Bruce Wood
• Alphabet Mystery by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Bruce Wood
• Bright and Early Thursday Evening by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Don Wood
• King Bidgood’s in The Bathtub by Audrey Wood illustrated by Don Wood
• The Napping House by Audrey Wood illustrated by Don Wood
• A Dog Needs a Bone! By Audrey Wood
• Little Penguin’s Tale by Audrey Wood
• Alphabet Adventure by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Bruce Wood

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Additional Audrey Wood Books for Grades K-4:

Keep in mind that the stories here are lengthier and equally incredible as the list above. I still read them with my young children, but the lessons I developed for them are for grades K-4.

• Sweet Dream Pie by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Mark Teague
• Rude Giants by Audrey Wood
• Weird Parents by Audrey Wood
• Heckedy Peg by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Don Wood
• The Flying Dragon’s Room by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Mark Teague
• Jubal’s Wish by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Don Wood
• Elbert’s Bad Word by Audrey Wood
• The Bunyans by Audrey Wood and illustrated by David Shannon

There are still more books written by Audrey Wood. I just focused on the ones I use the most with students and my children.

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Activities for The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear

I bought the big book version of this book from Lakeshore Learning the week before I started teaching. This book is a classic and everything I love about picture books!

Here are some activities we have done with this book;

• Retell the story with a finger puppet mouse.
• Review the book’s sequence of events with household items such as a toy strawberry, mini plate, disguise glasses, mouse, mini ladder, key, etc. I challenged my children by asking them to find items around them related to the book. 
• Free play with a sensory bin for inquiry learning. 
• Continue using the sensory bin for word work by having young learners match magnetic letters from the container with notecards written with keywords from the book. 
• Practice matching letters with words from the book using magnet wands and magnetic letters. My favorite set is the classroom set from Lakeshore Learning. 
• Counting 1-10 with bears and magnetic counter in the sensory bin. We tried using different size bear counters to compare and contrast sizes for a follow-up activity. 

Example of Activities

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Ten Little Fish Activities

I love how quickly you can read this book. The counting builds excitement as you turn the page. It is the perfect book for children just learning to count to ten.

• I gathered ten little fish from around the house, some sand toys, some mini erasers. Then as I read the book aloud, the kids acted out the book with the fish.
• Next, I had kids practice 1-10 number sense by having them match numbers with toy fish.
• I made ten paper fish from drawing a fish shape on construction paper. I used five different color paper, so I had two fish of each color. Then the children matched the fish together with the corresponding color fish. Finally, I laminated the fish to use again and again.
• We used the paper fish again to teach skip counting (count by 2).
• Another thing we did was create a number line 1-10 with numbers and fish counters to match the corresponding numbers. Then, I asked the child to use the fish to represent the given number.
• My kids’ favorite activity was to play with a sensory bin with magnetic letters, magnetic chips, blue sand, ten fish, numbers 1-10. Use magnetic wands, scoops, and small containers for sorting and inquiry play.

The sensory bin included:

• Puzzle piece numbers
• Ten laminated fish counters
• Hidden magnets
• Hidden ten fish
• Magnet letters to spell the book’s title

I prefer to keep this activity open-ended and let my kids play for the first ten minutes without interrupting them. Then, reread the book and, this time, see if they can retell the story with you, using the sensory bin items. After rereading the story, I reinforce the math activities before introducing the sensory bin. Then let them play again just for fun and see what they create.

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Little Penguin’s Tale Book Activities

This book is excellent for teaching cause and effect and sequence of events. But my favorite way to utilize this story is by comparing the sweet, playful illustrations in the book to real photographs of penguins.

• Antarctica sensory bin with white cotton balls, snowflakes, an old pillowcase, felt, play-dough, and penguin figurines. My kids played for hours each day for a week with these materials. They also enjoyed making tracks in the play-dough with the toy animals.
• To practice recalling details from the story, we used toy penguins and acted out the story.
• Snow sensory bin with baking soda and shaving cream. I then threw in figurines of Antarctica animals. Next, I added blue felt, cotton balls, and other items; keep in mind that it’s fun but hard to clean up. My kids were so excited I didn’t mind.
• Compare and contrast The Little Penguin’s Tale with Five Little Penguins Slipping on the Ice. 
• Compare and contrast illustrations of penguins in The Little Penguin’s Tale with photographs of penguins in Antarctica. I laminated images I found online to help them last through the years. Another option is to show 5 minutes of March of the Penguins movie for added details of how penguins move and interact in real life, to compare the book even further. 

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King Bidgood’s In The Bathtub Book Activities

Fall in love with this funny, playful, quick-paced book. My children love reading this after bath time.

• Using foam paint from Lakeshore Learning was a splurge but worth the price! We have used these paints for countless activities since we bought them. It has a soap-like quality; I filled small buckets 1/4 way with water and then let children add the color to play. We wanted to be like King Bidgood and went fishing with our colorful paint. I let them clean all their dirty toys from the Ten Little Fish sensory bin.
• Recall which character asked for help by the time of day in the story. I helped kids remember with a picture walk through the book and symbols from the story.
• We stopped on a page using chart paper and looked closely at the illustrations and jotted notes about their observations. I had them circle a specific letter we worked on, like “letter of the day.” We continued doing more word work with this chart and used it to build their fluency with CVC and sight words.

Alphabet Rescue Book Activities

When I worked with kindergarten students, the alphabet series by Audrey Wood were my favorite books to read to work on letter and sound recognition. The books in this series include Alphabet Mystery, Alphabet Adventure, and Alphabet Rescue, all written by Audrey Wood and illustrated by Bruce Wood.

• Reinforce letter/sound recognition by rereading the book multiple times and finding words with specific sounds.
• Create a chart to reinforce this practice even further.
• Use magnetic letters, puzzle letters, letter bean bags, floating letters in a sensory bin to have students sort and match letters together into piles.
• Then for added practice, make notecards of words from the book and add them to their corresponding letter piles.

Silly Sally Book Activities

This was one of my favorite books to read to work on rhyming words. I bought the big book from Lakeshore Learning years ago, but it was worth the money!

• Check comprehension by reviewing the sequence of events. Then challenge students to retell the story in order of animals in the story.
• Let students act out the story and all the silly moves with the reader’s theater of the story.
• Make a chart of rhyming words from the story.

For more Silly Sally ideas, please visit another post here and also here.

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Quick as a Cricket Book Ideas

I still have the thirty-year-old edition to this book that I read as a child, and I know read to my child. I am so excited to have a Spanish version for my husband to read to our children. 

• Use animal figurines that match the animals in the story. I bought the value tub of animals from Lakeshore Learning. Challenge students to be able to tell you the simile that the animal matches in the story.
• Ravi’s Roar and Quick as a Cricket emotions chart.

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Thank you for visiting Live Learn Literacy!

I’ll make another post soon for more intermediate lessons and activities I have used with more of Audrey Wood’s books. Every single book she has written I have loved. They are such a treasure for every child to read and help them live for learning literacy.