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!!