Instead of celebrating a romantic, lovely evening with my husband being all "mushy-gushy," I am at home doing homework while he is at work, and we are both eating leftovers from yesterday's dinner. Ahh, the life of a married college student. (I am not complaining. It really is great, I promise!)
This week, I dove into one of my favorite books from my childhood, Ralph S. Mouse by Beverly Cleary. I am a fan of this whole series actually! I found myself having a hard time putting this book down, just like when I was an elementary student. Even though I despise mice, this little mouse has captured my heart, and I have enjoyed going on many adventures with him and his motorcycle!
In this book, Ralph decides that he is tired of living at the hotel with his annoying family. He coaxes his human friend, Ryan, into taking him to school, where he stays for about a week. During that week, Ryan's class studied Ralph, but Ralph discovered that he hated all of the attention put on him for just being a mouse. He also did not like being alone at the school. In all honesty, he admitted that he was missing the hotel, his true home. Finally, he gets to go home with Ryan and is reunited with his family and friends. Also, because of a prior accident that happens to his motorcycle earlier in the story, he is also excited to show off his new sports car.
I think that this is a great book to read together as a class. It gives students the opportunity to go on an adventurous journey with a mouse, but it also teaches them that family and friends are so important in our lives. It also has the underlying theme of "there's no place like home." How fun would it be for students to write their own stories about Ralph S. Mouse and his adventures? I think that this would be a great extension activity to accompany this book.
If you have not read this book or the other books in this series, I highly encourage it!
Until next week,
Ashton
I don't think I've ever heard of this book before, but I must say you make it sound pretty interesting. I think this sounds like an awesome book to have a class work on together. You could do so much with the text. I like what you had in mind though with having them write down their own stories about Ralph S. Mouse, imagine how fun those would be to read. Great job, Ashton!
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard of this book series before last week when I discovered one of my brother's old books- Runaway Ralph- in an old box of books. It's sitting on my nightstand waiting to be picked up along with about 20 other books. From your description I am super excited to start reading it. They sound like really fun books! I love that you picked up on the theme of "there's no place like home". That message can be super important to kids who may think that the grass is greener on the other side. Your idea for having the kids send him on their own adventures was a super cute idea! Overall, great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Ashton!
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that I have read this story, but from your blog post, it sounds like a great book! I love that you pulled one of your favorite stories from elementary school to read for this challenge. It is great to have favorites to share with your future students to engage them in reading. I also love your extension activity that you could use with this story if you decided to read it with the class. As we are progressing through the TEP, I think that it is a great idea to start jotting down different ideas that we have so that we can add them to our bag of tricks.
Thanks for your post!
Ashley