Hello everybody again!
Last session was very interesting for me. We had the opportunity to know some children’s literature authors that I have never seen before. Some of them had really famous works but I did not know the writers.
All of them are very good at their jobs and they have won important literature awards, but now, I would like to talk about the one I researched, specially, about her most important book: The Gruffalo (Julia Donaldson).
The Gruffalo was published in 1999 and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It was written in verse, as most of the Julia’s works. The story is about a mouse that is going to be eaten by some dangerous animals (a fox, an owl and a snake). The mouse uses his intelligence by inventing an imaginary monster, called Gruffalo, to scare the rest of the animals and…as an element of surprise, the Gruffalo becomes real. I am not going to disclose the end because you need to read it! :).
The Gruffalo also has his own website, that I recommend you to know more about this interesting story: www.gruffalo.com
This website is a good bidirectional resource: our students can use it by their selves and also it is very useful for teachers. In this website it is possible to find lots of interesting resources, but I am going to show some of them:
This section is called “Play and Explore” and it includes some games in which it is possible to interact with the characters of the book by assembling puzzles, guessing the footprints of the animals, etc. It is very useful cause we can use it before, during and after reading. If we start doing this kind of activities before reading the book, our students can have a general idea about the story. We can also play during, since we can intrigue our students and after, to review what we have read.
Furthermore, this website has some news, not also about The Gruffalo, but about some other books of this charming author. This kind of news can inspire teachers to create similar activities with the students.
Moreover, it contains a rich variety of resources, but not just for students because we have a specific section only for teachers. It also includes an area in which it is possible to sing the songs with Julia Donaldson.
Finally, I would like to say that there are plenty of activities in this website that can be very useful for teachers and students. If we use them correctly in classrooms, our students can develop a lot of competences and intelligences, such as the spatial by assembling puzzles, the musical by singing the songs or the linguistic one, by reading.
I hope you visit this website! I am going to let you the link of the “The Gruffalo’s film” in case you want to watch it:
http://cinefox.tv/ver2666/the-gruffalo_pelicula-completa.html
(This is the only free web I found to watch the film and it has spanish subtitles). I recommend you!!
Hello Carolina!
First of all I want to thank you for talking about a work of Julia Donaldson and sharing with us a resource, from the real book to the website in which we can find a lot of interesting things.
Since everyone has presented their author, I found Julia Donaldson the most interesting author, maybe because of the way you presented her
In my opinion, looking for children´s literature authors is very enriching. There are two kind of advantages. On the one hand, if you like the author´s books, and his thoughts and morals, you can get the best out of them and use them in your classes. On the other hand, if you think this does not convince you and do not find it very interesting, it can also help you to have more ideas and have clear principles!
As a conclusion, the most resources we have in the future as teachers (even if we do not like them), the most ideas they can bring to us and make the teaching-learning process a lovely world.
Thank you for reading my post and commenting on it, Miguel. If you think Julia Donaldson is one of the best authors, could be because of her literature. Anyway, thank you again for your flattery. It’s true that we should be critical and analyse which kind of literature we are going to offer to students and why.
I hope you can use Julia at your classrooms!