Story Time with To Market To Market by Anne Miranda

I plan  to make Story Time at Lost in the Library a weekly feature where I post a  picture book I love along with suggested activities to do with the book. I'd also love to have a few guest posters....you don't need to be a story teller or librarian, you can just write about your favourite picture book and I'll add an activity or you can do the whole post if you'd like. If you are interested in participating just send me an email and we'll work out the date. Thanks.

Ok, so on to this week's book:

To Market, To Market by Anne Miranda

Illustrated by Janet Stevens

Published by Harcourt Childrens 1997

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig ... What's a poor shopper to do when her groceries have a mind of their own?

To market, to market is a nursery rhyme from my (much) younger days. I love the twist in this one where every item-in this case animal, gets up to mischief in the woman's home. I love her exasperation, the kids love pointing out where the animals are and what they are doing. Eventually the woman becomes so fed-up that she just makes soup for lunch. The illustrations are fantastic and there is high contrast between the black and white photograph like backgrounds and the bright colours in the animals, food and people. It's a favourite to share because the possiblities are endless for extension activities.

A few things you could try that have worked for me:

Art: we've done soup can art like Andy Warhol

Game: I've brought in (toy) food items and have set up a grocery game where the children "buy" the groceries to make their lunch.

Craft: I've provided clipings from flyers of different types of foods. The children glued their food choices to a paperbag template.

Songs: We've shared the tradition to market rhyme as well as the circle song "We're going to the Market"

Science: We've looked at the characteristics of the animals in the book-where they live, what they eat.