Creepy Comparisons with a freebie

We don't really celebrate Halloween in my part of the world, however I really love the picture book, "Creepy Carrots" by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown. I think it would be a fun way to touch on Halloween, without any ghosts, witches or really scary stuff.

Jasper Rabbit loves carrots and he is paranoid that the carrots are out to get him.  This is a great text for close reading, as students can explore the illustrations for evidence to support why Jasper might think the carrots are following him.  It's also a great text for problem-solution (top level structure) - Jasper had a problem - how did he solve it?  In addition to this it is a wonderful text for extending students' vocabulary and teaching alliteration.  You can view the "Creepy Carrots" video here:

You can also visit the author's website and the illustrator's website to learn more about their work.

I created a "Creepy Carrots" vocabulary extension resource to support the text that includes:

Vocabulary matching cards

Vocabulary graphic organiser

Alliteration matching cards

Inferring prompts

Creepy vegie writing activity

I find that students often make text-to-self connections easily, but sometimes need support and scaffolding to make text-to-text connections.  That is why I often plan using companion texts.  A terrific companion text for "Creepy Carrots" is "Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!" by Candace Fleming.  You can view a youtube clip here and there are free teacher notes as well.

In a similar way to "Creepy Carrots", Mr McGeely has a problem with the hungry bunnies eating his vegetables.  Similar to "Creepy Carrots" he designs and builds a protective wall to protect his vegetable patch.  Students can compare and contrast the problems and solutions in both texts.  They may also compare and contrast the twists at the end of each story. 

I have created a freebie  with two venn diagrams to help with this.  Click on the images below to grab the freebie and to check out my "Creepy Carrots" resource.

     

Candace Fleming has a sequel to "Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!" called "Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, Hide!" and there are free teacher notes on her website.

Rhonda over at Reading Towards the Stars, has a wonderful freebie using past tense verbs - it's a fun game that students will love, so hop on over to Rhonda's blog to learn about this game and pick up your freebie :)  Any of these hyperlinks will take you there :)

I would love to hear from anyone who has used these texts in the classroom and how you used them.  Also, if you can think of any other companion texts that might fit in here, please let me know.

Have a great week!