The Enormous Watermelon

by Brenda Parkes, Judith Smith, Mary Davy (Illustrator)

Best seller in schools! An innovation on a traditional tale. Extends predictable patterns, identifies rhyme words, high-frequency words, segments phonemes in CVC words. Age 4-8 year olds. Ideal for Shared Reading and Writing. Provides thorough coverage of the Literacy Strategy requirements for Year 1 (P2). 52.4cm by 37.5cm wide. Published 1997. 24 pages.

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books

Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Dr. Brenda Parkes has written many books for children as well as a professional book for teachers about shared reading. She has taught in New Zealand and Australia and spent twenty years as a teacher educator at Griffith University, Queensland.

Reviews

[Sudaporn Obom · Rating 4 out of 5]

The words in this book are perfect for young kids who are just starting to read, with bold highlights to help them memorise new words. The illustrations are also incredibly vivid.

[Somer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The children in my session adored this

[Charlotte Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is brilliant for children in KS1 or those within a special school setting. Children can explore the texture of watermelon and engage in a number of messy play activities. They could link in to maths activities such as sharing the watermelon equally, counting the number of watermelon seeds etc, you could even create watermelon recipes, and engage them through cooking. Furthermore, the characters within the story are familiar so you could get them to think about the nursery rhymes they are associated with, you could even get them to list characters they might want to add to the story.

It is a brilliant stimuli for writing new stories, such as ‘The enormous (add food item here)’ and get them to use familiar characters using a different theme such as fairy tales or cartoon characters (something you think will interest them) and a food item they particular enjoy.

[Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. This is a big book.
2. The characters in this story are from nursery rhymes.
3. This is a retold story by Brenda Parks.






learning Activity

a great end of the end of the year story. After reading the story I would buy 2 watermelon. One traditional oblong melon, and one of the newly seedless one.
We then would compare the two fruits. Next I would cut the large watermelon giving each child a piece I would tell the children to keep the seeds we will count and add all of the seeds to see just how many seeds were in the watermelon students will get a chance to keep their seeds.Then we will cut the smaller watermelon open.(hopefully in the new smaller melons there wont be any seeds)