The Rhyming Rabbit

World Book Day 2018

World Book Day 2018 is just around the corner so we have been spending lots of time reading books and doing activities related to our favourites. One of our favourite children's authors is Julia Donaldson and I always pick up new book titles whenever I see them. A recent purchase was 'The Rhyming Rabbit'. I was drawn to it by its bold and sparkly illustrations (there is glitter on every page) as well as the wonderful poems inside.

'The Rhyming Rabbit' is a story of a rabbit who loves to make up poetry. However, his friends are not so keen on his rhyming habit and often tell him to stop reciting his poems. One day he meets a sheep who also likes to rhyme and the pair strike up a friendship and create poetry together.

Making puppets

I thought this story would be great fun for the children to retell with the help of some props. We made some puppets of the characters in the story by photographing the pictures in the book. Then I printed these photos, stuck them to card so that they would be more hardy and cut them out. Then we stuck the pictures to ice lolly sticks that the children could hold.

The children were thrilled with the puppets and wanted to make some of their own. I suggested they create some extra characters for the story and they drew a snake, a bee and a frog.

Storytelling

Storytelling is part of our everyday lives. We often retell events that have happened to us or those around us. Retelling stories has a number of benefits for children. It allows them to sequence events; putting them in the correct order. It builds their ability to describe events and characters. It also increases their vocabulary and comprehension skills.

The children decided to retell the story of 'The Rhyming Rabbit' in the boys bedroom with the green throw on the sofa and the wallpaper making a good backdrop. They had a lot of fun working together and using each puppet to retell the story. They referred to the book to help them say the poems.

Poetry

During the story the rabbit meets different animals and makes up poems about them. Following this theme, the children made up some poems about their own characters too. We talked about poems and how some rhyme and some do not. The children love poems that rhyme and they also like to think about words that rhyme when they are reading. Here are the children's poems.

Snake
Slithering, slithering snake,
She slithers beside the lake,
Hiding behind a log,
Catching tadpoles and frogs.

Bee
Buzzing, buzzing bee,
He lives in a tree,
Making honey for me,
Busy, busy bee.

Frog
Bouncy, bouncy frog,
He lives in the bog,
Catching flies,
High in the sky.

The children thoroughly enjoyed storytelling with the puppets and have already asked to make more for the characters of different books. Do you use props for storytelling with your children?