TITLE: Where the Wild Things Are
AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR: Maurice Sendak
PUBLISHER: Harper Collins Children's Books PUBLICATION DATE: 1984
GENRE: Non-Fiction READING LEVEL: 9+ years
BRIEF OVERVIEW: This is a classic story of a young boy who is searching to find where he belongs. He stumbles across some scary monsters, who actually are very friendly and help him on his journey. Along the way, he learns about life, love, and caring for other people. The book is a short story, only about 45 pages, but the movie was made into an over hour long production. The movie did a nice job of portraying the book, but there is really nothing like creating your own vision of the book in your head while reading. Overall, the children's story is a fantastic tale to share with children of all ages.
INTEGRATED ACTIVITY: To summarize the book, students will be doing an interactive and oral activity. Students will be split up into groups of about 5, and will rotate in centers throughout the room. Each center will be a different dance, or physical activity that correlates with the book. For each center, they are to discuss what happened during that part of the center. For the beginning center of the book- students are to run a short amount of time in a straight line to recreate the voyage of Max to the wild things. For the middle, they are to play a game of “Simon Says” with only dance like moves to recreate Max being the King of the Wild Things. For the ending, students are to play “Dance Freeze Tag,” (instead of freezing when tagged, child has to dance until someone frees him/her) to recreate Max trying to leave the Wild Things and their dislike for his departure. As a closure to this activity, students will describe what happened in the story and how each dance center portrayed that.
REVIEWER’S NAME & AFFILIATION: Patricia Price - VSU Teacher Candidate - LITR 3110 A
