The Napping House: teaching adjectives, synonyms, sequence, and context clues

Have you read "The Napping House" by Audrey Wood? The illustrations by Don Wood are beautiful and provide so many context clues to enhance the story. I used it today to teach Language Arts to the kiddos. Here's a video link, in case you don't have the book: The Napping House video
Or this video:  The Napping House with words to follow along with.


Every character is attached to an adjective: a snoring granny, a dozing dog, etc. We read one page of the story without the adjectives and discussed how boring the story is without the descriptive words.

Each of these adjectives is also a synonym for "napping." I didn't go too far into this topic, but it's helpful to show your children how there are many words that replace "sleeping" or "sleepy." It keeps the reader interested.

 Since our daughter is 3, she is able to answer basic questions involving sequence. Example: On every page as one animal joins the pile, another animal is waking up. I asked questions to her like: "Who is on the bed now?" "Who is waking up?" "Who will get on the bed next?"


Using the illustrations as context clues:
 1. Were the characters napping or sleeping? By using the clues in the story, we see that the granny was in her pj's until the end; she wore a dress outside.
 2. The weather: it rained in the beginning, but as morning approached, the room became brighter, until morning.  All of the rain and sun provided a rainbow!

Biblical Implications: This is not a religious story, however, it does point out cause and effect. Our actions cause reactions.

Writing: Writing can overwhelm a first grader like our son, so instead I gave him specifics. Fill in the blank and change the title, characters, adjectives, conflict, and solution/resolution. He chose:
Title: The Cranky House
Characters: Mommy, Daddy, Callie, Jack (our family)
Adjectives: grumpy, angry, mad, grouchy.
Conflict: (a character that changes the house to become the opposite). He chose a skunk that got in the house and chased everyone around and made them cranky.
Solution: The phone rang and scared the skunk out of the house and everyone was happy.

We then re-read the story, using our choices to alter the story. Try it with your kiddos and let me know how it went!