<!-- .pd-content1 { left; } .pd-img1 { left; 60px; } .pd-img2 { left; 0px; 10px;} .pd-headline1 { #CC6600; 1.25em; } .pd-headline2 { #CC6600; medium} .pd-text2 { 700;} .pd-text3 { italic; x-large;} --> Teaching Is More Effective When Kids Are Having Fun! This frolicking adventure teaches children about prepositions as they follow a very focused fox in his chase for a mischievous mouse. Kids will love learning what a preposition is and how it can connect words together when they see the fox chase the mouse around the house, under the fence, into the barn, out the window, and even through the chicken coop. Using additional learning activities at the end of the book, children can then apply what they've learned. Around the House, the Fox Chased the Mouse is an installment in Rick Walton's award-winning language arts series, which has sold over 150,000 copies. Kids will adore his silly stories, colorful and funny illustrations, and witty wordplay, while teachers and parents will love the definitions and learning activities provided! Check out Rick's other Rick Walton is the author of more than sixty children's books. Rick's Language Arts series has sold more than 150,000 copies. His books have been featured on the IRA Children's Choice list, Reading Rainbow, and CBS This Morning.
Born and raised in Utah, Walton is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church. He served as a missionary to Brazil from 1976 to 1978, soon after he graduated from high school. Later, at Brigham Young University, he became president of the Brazil Club. In 1980, he graduated from Brigham Young with a bachelor's degree in Spanish and a minor in Portuguese, the language spoken in Brazil.
Walton's education continued after he obtained his degree. In 1980, he went back to Brigham Young for one semester of graduate work in business, but chose not to follow that career path. Deciding to become a teacher, he earned certification in elementary education from Brigham Young in 1987, as well as certification to teach gifted and talented students. Up to that point, he had held a number of jobs, including a year with the parks and recreation department of Provo, Utah. In 1987, he began teaching sixth grade at a local public school, then switched to a private school.
Also interested in computers, Walton would later publish several items of software. He left teaching to accept a position as software designer for IBM in 1989. In 1994, he turned to freelance software design and writing. He also returned to Brigham Young University once again, this time to earn his master's degree in English, with an emphasis on creative writing.
Walton's wife, Ann, with whom he has written many of his books, is a computer programmer. They were married in 1983, and have five children. With Dumb Clucks! and Something's Fishy! in 1987, the Waltons began writing books.
I would use this book to teach prepositions. It is such a cute book that will make teaching this writing tool in a fun way. I would also do a mini writers workshop lesson for this. I will have the students make little foxes and mice then have them place them in different areas around the class. Once they did that they would have to write different sentences about where and how they found the foxes and mice in the class, using prepositional phrases.
This works well as a funny storytime book for preschoolers, but if I were still teaching English, I'd also use it as a fun way to explain prepositions to my high school students.
Very cute book to help kids learn prepositions. It's easy to read and the illustrations are very cute and bright and fun. I have two little boys (6 yo and 3 yo) and they loved this one.
This is a good book for children to teach them about where things are. This story is about a fox that is chasing a mouse up, down, besides, in, out, over many things. When I started to read it I thought that the fox wanted to eat the mouse and I thought it was not a good book for children. When I got to the end I had changed my mind and was happy that they were playing tag. Now the mouse is going to go through the same places the fox went but backwards because the fox tagged him after going over the rocks and now the mouse was going over the rock to get the fox.
This is a great book to expose your child to prepositions in a game-like way. Prepositions are so important in understanding sentence structure that I bribe my older kids to learn a list of 40 frequently used ones. Beyond that, this book is fun and has a wonderful circle-back format. The illustrations are goofy, but fun. The sound effects are a bit of a diversion from the line of story, but my little guy has them down and loves them.
This went pretty well in Storytime, but I also used it to interact with the kids. I asked them what each animal on the pages were and what noises they made - the only problem with this was getting them to quiet down again! It was fun, though. I think it's also a great way to teach prepositional phrases, but more one-on-one rather than in a group. I wasn't a huge fan of the art, but I did like that it rhymed.
This is a whimsical tale about a game of tag between predator and prey. The illustrations have a lot of texture and are in double page spreads throughout the book. The text is simple, taking the story throughout a farm and forest. This would be a fun read aloud--getting the students to act out the sounds of the farm animals could make it interactive.
While probably intended to teach older school-age children about prepositions (under, in, over, etc.), my almost-two-year olds enjoyed learning about these words in the context of familiar farm animals (mouse, horse, cow, etc.). A cute set-up for a child-accessible plot twist. Great book!
"I found this book all by myself! I loved it and liked it." I was so surprised they were playing tag. Mama was a bit worried when I came home from the library that something sad or scary would happen in the book. But it didn't. I really liked the pictures.
Great for a pocket chart activity: kids can change parts of the story with different prepositional phrases, or even different characters, then create their own book of prepositions.
A fun way to learn or review prepositions and prepositional phrases. It would be great to have student come up with their own preposition story after reading this one! Lots of possibilities!