teacher guide - jack

JACK’S HOUSEby Karen Magnuson Beil

illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka

This guide supplements your home or class-room reading of Jack’s House and connects

reading, math and measurement, language

arts, art, and fun!

The activities, designed for preschool through grade 2, focus on skills including

measuring, writing, vocabulary building,

and cooperative learning with partners. Modify projects to suit your students’ abili-

ties and interests.

Pre-Reading

• What do you think this book will be about? Can you find any clues on the front and back covers that give you a hint?

• Have you ever seen a house being built?

• What do you think it takes to build a house? (Answers might include: various tools, lumber and building supplies, courage, determination, teamwork.)

• On the front cover, our hero wears a tool belt. What is in his belt? How might he use these tools?

During the First Reading

Do a “read-aloud/think-aloud” for your first reading.

There is a secret right on page 1: Who is Jack? Is he the dog or the man? Use this hidden identity and other questions to encourage the children to “think aloud.”

Reading is more than being able to de-code words. It requires understanding and anticipating what comes next. Young readers need to learn to hold a question in their minds and recognize - “Ah-ha!” - when the text answers the question.

1 www.karenbeil.com copyright 2008 karen m. beil

JACK’S HOUSE

Holiday House BooksBy Karen BeilIllustrated by Mike Wohnoutka

ISBN-13 978-0-8234-1913-5

preK-grade 2

Illustrations © 2008 Mike Wohnoutka

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It is important to model this reading strategy--how you as a reader “think your way through” a story by pointing out the things you wonder about and demonstrat-ing how you ask yourself questions as you read. Students will raise questions too, but don’t answer them. Instead, encour-age them by saying something like, “Yes, that’s a very good question. I’m wonder-ing about that too.” Answers will be re-vealed as they read, teaching them to ask questions of the text and look and listen for clues.

Read-aloud/think-aloud modeling will help your children increase comprehen-sion and patience in waiting for the text and illustrations to reveal answers. This sets the groundwork for independent thinking.

Post-Reading

Discussion Starters

• If you were building a house, what would you do first? Second?

• List the steps in order on chart paper as you retell the story.

• Talk about planning and the decisions that must be made before drawing a de-sign for a house.

• Has anybody ever seen a forklift? What else could it lift besides bricks?

• Look at the verbs, hoist and haul. What else could you hoist? (flag, pirate flag, sail)

• Older students could make compari-sons: How is writing a story like build-ing a house? How is building a house like making soup? (Compare building steps with the soup-making steps in the story, Stone Soup.)

• As a fun activity for groups of 3, name as many types of houses as you can in the city, in rural and suburban areas, in other countries, ex. apartment building, mountain house, mobile home, beach

cottage, castle, log cabin, adobe hut, lighthouse, house boat, tree house, tent, the White House.

Bulletin board ideas:Jack’s House can be the springboard for projects, displays, and bulletin boards:

• “Laying the Foundation for...”• “Building a Story ...”

• “Our First Draft ...”• “Caution! Work in Progress!”• “Construction Zone”

Decorate with yellow construction-zone tape, orange caution cones, black tire tracks, architectural plans, ladders, or cut-outs from home magazines.




Language Arts

Learning Skills:Building vocabulary, compare/contrast, constructing a Venn diagram

Use the specialized words in Jack’s House to augment vocabulary, ex. hoist, haul (note: verbs can be acted out), shingles, hammock, names of trucks.

Make a chart of kinds of trucks and how they’re used. Start with a blank chart and have the children help you fill it as you read through Jack’s House again. Encour-age them to come up with different action words and different uses. (ex. What else could this truck haul?)

• Can you think of other kinds of trucks?• Compare and contrast the trucks: How

are they different? How are they simi-lar? Compare the work they do.

• Is there another vehicle in Jack’s House? What does this vehicle do?

(Incidentally, Jack’s car is a Corvette. Here’s one from the 1957 display room at the Northeast Classic Car Museum in Norwich, NY. Pretty snazzy, huh?)

Make a classroom display of toytrucks.• Have students print labels for their

trucks: dump truck, pickup truck, etc.

Truck (noun)

Action (verb)

Thing(object)

bulldozer scrapes land

backhoe digs cellar, dirt

cement mixer

pours floor, cement

forklift hoists, lifts up

bricks

rack truck

carries, delivers

windows

boom truck

raises, lifts

shingles

dump truck

hauls, dumps

trees, dirt

van brings, delivers

hammock

pickup truck

carries,carts, hauls

grass, trees, hammock, Jack

Build a town using Legos, blocks, Giant Legos, Lincoln Logs, milk cartons - and teamwork.

• What buildings will your town have? ex. houses, shops, schools, a hardware store, library, a lumber yard, a truck-stop, a diner. Combine with a study of community.

• Map skills: Draw a town.




Math & Map-making

Learning skills:Measuring, use of rulers or centimeter sticks.

Talk about measuring in inches and feet (or meters). • What would a builder, like Max, need to

measure? (boards, windows, shingles...) • Why do you think it’s important to

measure accurately? Talk about the old adage: “Measure twice; cut once.” What do you think it means? What happens if a builder makes a mistake in measur-ing?

• What could Max use if he couldn’t find his ruler? What would the results be?

• As homework, students could use rulers or centimeter sticks to measure 3 ob-jects in their homes, ex. table, area rug, picture.

TeamworkLearning Skills:Making connections, Venn diagram, ana-lyzing and comparing character motiva-tion, comparing stories.

In the old story, “The House That Jack Built,” Jack gets the credit for building the house. Talk about persistence and getting what you work for.

Talk about teamwork. • What does it mean when a person does

“the lion’s share of the work.” • What happened to Jack? What made

Max send Jack away? What upset Max?

• Compare Jack and Max with the Little Red Hen and her friends. What roles do friends play? What are the outcomes of the stories? Make a Venn diagram.

Reader response.• Can the student make a connection, text

to text, self, world?• How can a person can stand up for him-

self or herself?• What does it mean to take credit for

someone else’s work? Is that an exam-ple of bullying?

Other books to use in conjunction with Jack’s House and this discussion:

• The Little Red Hen, by Paul Galdone, Clarion, 1985

• Farmer Duck, by Martin Waddell, Can-dlewick, 2002.


A surveyor uses a tool called a transit to measure angles, dis-tances, and elevations of land.

Illustration copyright 2008 Mike Wohnoutka



Inspired by the Old-Time RhymeRoots of This Cumulative Story

This is the House that Jack built.

This is the Malt that lay in the House that Jack built.

This is the Rat that ate the MaltThat lay in the House that Jack built.

This is the Cat that killed the RatThat ate the Malt that lay in the House that Jack built.

This is the Dog that worried the CatThat killed the Rat that ate the MaltThat lay in the House that Jack built.

This is the Cow with the crumpled hornThat tossed the Dog that worried the CatThat killed the Rat that ate the MaltThat lay in the House that Jack built.

This is the Maiden all forlornThat milked the Cow with the crumpled hornThat tossed the Dog that worried the CatThat killed the Rat that ate the MaltThat lay in the House that Jack built.

This is the Man all tattered and tornThat kissed the Maiden all forlornThat milked the Cow with the crumpled hornThat tossed the Dog that worried the Cat

That killed the Rat that ate the MaltThat lay in the House that Jack built.

This is the Priest all shaven and shornThat married the Man all tattered and tornThat kissed the Maiden all forlornThat milked the Cow with the crumpled hornThat tossed the Dog that worried the CatThat killed the Rat that ate the MaltThat lay in the House that Jack built.

This is the Cock that crowed in the mornThat waked the Priest all shaven and shornThat married the Man all tattered and tornThat kissed the Maiden all forlornThat milked the Cow with the crumpled hornThat tossed the Dog that worried the CatThat killed the Rat that ate the MaltThat lay in the House that Jack built.

This is the Farmer who sowed the cornThat kept the Cock that crowed in the mornThat waked the Priest all shaven and shornThat married the Man all tattered and tornThat kissed the Maiden all forlornThat milked the Cow with the crumpled hornThat tossed the Dog that worried the CatThat killed the Rat that ate the MaltThat lay in the House that Jack built.


LONDON, 1878. Randolph Caldecott illus-trated the version below in his first picture book.

With the tremendous success of “The House that Jack Built” and “The Diverting History of John Gilpin,” Caldecott (1846-1886) published two picture books every December until his death 8 years later in St. Augustine, FL. While the first print run was 10,000 copies, during the next eight years his dozen picture books sold more than 800,000 copies at a cost of a shilling a piece.

The first author to be paid a royalty rather than a flat fee for his work, Caldecott re-ceived one “old penny” per book (12 pence equaled 1 shilling).

The story’s origins are old. In 1755 one of its earliest versions was published in Nurse Truelove's New-Year's-Gift, or the Book of Books for Children. Some suggest an ear-lier Yiddish version appeared in 1590: "the cat came and ate the mouse who ate the rope that bound the ox who drank the water that extinguished the fire that burned the stick that beat the dog that ate the kid..."

Modern adaptations. Some teachers alter the original story by replacing Malt with cheese, Priest with judge, Cock with rooster, and/or killed with chased.

For more info about Randolph Caldecott: www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk/who.htm

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http://www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk/who.htm

http://www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk/who.htm

Write & Illustratewhat happens next?

Take a close look at the story’s structure, brainstorm ideas, and dream up a silly sequel or another exciting scene.

You can use this as a whole-class activity, for students working inde-pendently or with partners, or a combination.

Learning Skills: Critical and imaginative thinking, writing, identifying story ele-ments, counting, cooperative learning with partners

Writing Process:Before your students write their story, talk about the story elements, language pat-terning, repetition of both language and action, and the sequence of the story in Jack’s House. You might guide them in this analysis using a story web or other organ-izing device familiar to your class.

Use the book’s last page as a springboard to new ideas. Brainstorm ideas for a new story. Encourage the students to refine those ideas by asking questions. “What if” questions often shake loose creative new approaches.

If used as a whole-class activity, students come up with the ideas for the new story elements, then the teacher does the physi-cal writing on chart paper using student-generated ideas.

If students are to write independently, the teacher should first lay the foundation for the new patterns and model the beginning before students begin writing. Partners come up with the ideas for a new page for the book, and then write and illustrate their page.

Put the pages together to make a class book for your classroom library or one that could be borrowed by individual stu-dents to share at home.

Read your book to another class, or cele-brate everyone’s hard work with a publi-cation & signing party. Invite parents, school dignitaries, and local reporters. Have each student sign the “published book.” Students can read their pages aloud at the celebration and talk about how they wrote the book.

Thanks to those who shared their exciting ideas for using Jack’s House in class!

Patricia Akerley, grade 2 teacher, Durham, CT

Betsy Price, art teacher, Friendship Central School, Friendship, NY

Meg Urbanski, reading teacher, Pine Bush Elementary School, Guilderland, NY

If you have ideas for using Jack’s House with students, please email me on the Contact page. I’d love to hear from you!


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Art & Design

Learning Skills: Story elements, fine motor skills, following directions, listening

Perspective:Art teachers might find it interest-ing to point out how illustrator Mike Wohnoutka drew the trucks from varied angles and perspectives--from below, from up above, from the side, from the front. Notice how this technique contrasts the sizes of the trucks and the dogs in Jack’s House, making the trucks look bigger in some cases and Max look smaller.

• Children can experiment with this technique by viewing an object from two vantage points: sitting on the floor or standing above it.

• Draw a picture of your favorite truck (or a house) from above and/or below.

• Talk about careers - house builders, truck drivers, archi-tect, surveyors (see Max with a surveyor’s transit on the title page and with an architect’s drawing table on the front flap). Talk about how people in these jobs use art and planning.

Trucks on the Move:Draw trucks on construction pa-per and cut out. Cut out the wheels separately and attach with paper fasteners so they rotate.

Cutting a pattern of tire-tread for your bulletin board is good exer-cise for improving cutting skills.

Students can also make a dump truck with a movable box that dumps its load with a paper fas-tener.

You may hear students making the “beep-beep-beep” sound of a truck backing up. This is a great opportunity to talk about safety equipment and being careful around vehicles. And if they add people to their pictures, encour-age them to add hardhats and safety goggles and talk about the slogans “Safety First!” and “Safety is Job One!”

Knock, Knock:In connection with Build a Town (on page 3), students can make pictures of buildings, then cut doors (top and one side) which will hinge to open and close. Put-ting another sheet behind will al-low them to hide something fun behind the door (like an Advent calendar).

♻

Recycling: If you use old file folders for the cut-outs, you could turn this into a “teachable moment” and talk about conserving the Earth’s land resources and the need for recy-cling. Since trees are renewable resources, the emphasis would be on saving landfill space and en-ergy.


Illustration copyright 2008 Mike Wohnoutka



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