Goodnight Moon - Alabama Shakespeare Festival

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival
2014 Study Materials and Activities for
Goodnight Moon
Adapted from the book by
Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd
Book, music and lyrics by Chad Henry
Contact ASF at:
www.asf.net
1.800.841-4273
Study materials written by
Susan Willis, ASF Dramaturg
1
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
Step Inside the Great Green Room!
Characters in the Play
Bunny
Old Lady
Mouse
Cat, Dog, Dish/Spoon and Clarabelle the Cow from the picture
Tooth Fairy
Many objects, such as the clock, balloon, and
telephone, also speak
About These Study
Materials
These materials are
designed to inform teachers
about the experience that
the play Goodnight Moon
will offer their students
and to provide post-show
activities and information
that can be used with the
play. Story starters/writing
prompts can be adapted to
grade level.
Activities include:
• bunny lore
• stepping inside a book
• the moon and stars
• rhyme and word play
About the Stage Adaptation
On stage the revered children's
bedtime story, Goodnight Moon, takes a
longer and livelier path to sleep than in
its printed version and thus appeals to
a wider age range of children, including
those old enough to lose a tooth.
The play lets Bunny step inside his
favorite book, which, not surprisingly, is
Goodnight Moon. As a result, the Great
Green Room and all its furnishings
come to life and play with him in
unexpected and exciting ways. Bunny
may go to bed, but he isn't ready to
sleep yet—there's too much to do and
see and explore, no matter how many
times he's told "hush."
Children's imaginations will be as
thrilled as Bunny's as he gets to talk
and play with everything and everyone.
Between the kittens and mittens, the
mouse and doll's house, the bears with
their chairs, and the cow repeatedly
trying to jump over the Moon, activity
abounds for Bunny, including losing a
tooth and visiting with the Moon. Even
The Runaway Bunny gets included
along the way!
Full of songs and dance, the play is
a wide awake version of the much loved
bedtime story. It happens between
"there was…" and "goodnight," and
no one in the audience will nod off, not
even when it's finally time for Bunny to
go to sleep.
The nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle
Diddle" has a large role in the play
Songs in the Play
1/ "Great Green Room"
"my favorite place in my favorite
book"
2/ "Mr. Nobody"
about who breaks things and
causes messes around the house
3/ "You'll Never Get Away"
The Runaway Bunny song
4/ "Hey, Diddle Diddle"
a riff on the nursery rhyme
5/ "Bears with Chairs"
bears come out of picture to dance
6/ "My Tooth Got Looth"
7/ "Tooth Fairy"
songs about losing teeth
8/ "North Star"
ballad to North Star as guardian
9/ "Positive Attitude"
urging Cow to try one more time
10/ "Goodnight Moon"
2
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
About the Book Goodnight Moon
• Goodnight Moon was written in
1947 and has sold more than 4 million
copies.
• Goodnight Moon is 130 words
long and has 32 pages.
• Margaret Wise Brown, its author,
wrote more than 100 children's
books.
• When she died in 1952, she
had 73 more book manuscripts,
which her sister kept. A publisher
found the treasure trove in 1991,
and these books are now being
published.
• Brown said she dreamed her
stories and had to write them down
quickly the next morning before she
forgot them. Goodnight Moon was
written all in one morning in just that
way.
• Brown wrote "the way children
wanted to hear a story."
• She asked her illustrators "to draw
the way a child saw things."
• Illustrator Clement Hurd drew
Brown's second book, The Runaway
Bunny, in 1942 before Goodnight
Moon.
Have students with international
backgrounds? How many ways
does your class know to say
"good night"?
"One can but hope to make
a child laugh or feel clear and
happy-headed as he follows the
simple rhythm to its logical end. It
can jog him with the unexpected
and comfort him with the familiar,
lift him for a few minutes from his
own problems of shoelaces that
won't tie, and busy parents and
mysterious clock time, into the
world of a bug or a bear or a bee
or a boy living in the timeless world
of a story."
—Margaret Wise Brown
• Hurd uses The Runaway Bunny
several times in Goodnight Moon:
— on the bookshelf one book is
open; it's The Runaway Bunny.
— on the wall is a painting of a
bunny fly-fishing with a carrot to catch
a swimming baby bunny as in The
Runaway Bunny.
• Hurd also included Goodnight
Moon itself in the illustrations. It is the
book on the nightstand.
Watch the Illustrations' Details
• the clock hands move
• the kittens ignore the mouse
• the kittens play with the yarn ball
• the red balloon disappears at times
• the room darkens progressively
• the painting on the three bears' wall
is the cow jumping the moon
• Bunny looks at different things but
eyes are closed on the last page
See the "Wikipedia"
entry on Goodnight Moon
for more illustration details.
3
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
Rabbit FACTS
How the Rabbit World Looks
Did you know that:
While exploring "If I Were a Bunny"
to learn about bunny bodies, let the
class experience life as a wild bunny.
How does a bunny hop? Front legs,
then the longer back legs.
What do you have to watch out for?
Rabbits are prey animals to wolves,
coyotes, raccoons, cats, and raptor
birds (hawks and eagles). How careful
does a rabbit have to be? Is that why
they have such good eyesight and
hearing?
Where do you find the food you need
to eat? A bunny's diet is mostly grass
hay and fresh food, predominantly leafy
greens, with much smaller portions of
starchy vegetables or sugary fruit as a
treat (far more lettuce than carrots).
For more details, see http://
rabbit.org/fun-and-educational-stufffor-kids/
• domestic bunnies are born with their eyes shut and without fur
• baby bunnies are usually called "kits" or "kittens"
• girl rabbits are called "does" and boy rabbits "bucks," just like deer
• a rabbit's teeth never stop growing
• bunnies in good health can live 6 to 8 years
Types of bunny ears—
lop-eared and stand-up
• in the wild, rabbits live in groups called "warrens"
• a bunny's backbone is very fragile and easily broken, so it has to be
handled carefully and not dropped
• the longest bunny ears on record were 31" (measure that!)
• rabbits are most active during the evening and early morning
If I Were a Bunny…
Bunny tails are not round
cotton balls
Rabbit yawn shows off teeth
Let the students make themselves
bunny ears; then interview the
"bunnies" in your class:
If you were a bunny:
• what would your face look like?
Draw your bunny face.
• how big would your teeth be?
Why? Draw your bunny self smiling.
• how big would your ears be?
That big!? Do they stand up straight
or flop down (lop-eared)? Make sure
they're big on your drawing.
• what would your arms and legs
look like? How would they move?
What color might they be?
• what would your "hands" look
like?
• what would you see if you looked
at your back in a mirror? Draw your
bunny back.
• what would you eat? Draw your
lunch. Bring a bunny snack.
• how would you move? How fast
could you move? Move like a bunny.
• where would you live? Would
it be warm and dry? If you lived in a
house, how would you get what you
need?
Tell Your Own Bunny Story
• Have the class make up its own
story about a bunny.
4
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
Stepping into Your Favorite Book
• In the play, Bunny starts by
stepping into his favorite book. What
is your favorite book?
• Take a piece of paper, fold it, and
pretend it is your favorite book. Write
its title and author on the paper. Hold
the paper up and hug it—and pretend
you are "stepping into" your favorite
book and you are now in its story.
If you are in your favorite
book:
• who can you talk to? What do you
talk about? Draw a picture of you with
someone in your favorite book.
• where are you? What can you
see? What can you hear? What can
you touch?
• what is happening? Draw a
picture of you joining in with something
that happens in your favorite book.
• write yourself into a page of your
book. What would you do or say to
the others?
• If someone else has the same
favorite book, tell each other stories
about being in the book. Imagine an
adventure together.
• Write or tell your teacher why
you like this book. Why is it special
to you?
Going to Bed, Going to Sleep Discussion
Saying Goodnight
• Narrate or
write your own
Goodnight Moon,
starting with "There
was" and describe
what's in your room,
and ending by saying
"goodnight" to things. Or
do it for rest period in the
classroom.
In Goodnight Moon, Bunny is in bed
about to go to sleep.He looks around
his room, sees what's there, and then
says goodnight to it. Do you go to bed
like Bunny?
• Think about how you go to bed.
Do you do the same things every night
as you get ready to go to bed? Does
someone talk to you, check on you,
tuck you in?
• What do you see when you look
around your room? What's on your
walls? Do you have pictures like Bunny
has? What are they pictures of?
• Is there a chair? Are there
stuffed animals? Do they sleep with
you sometimes like Bunny's do in the
play?
• Is there a bookcase? What books
do you have?
• Do you go right to sleep every
night or does someone come in to say
"hush" or "go to sleep"? That happens
to Bunny in the play.
• Do you pretend
that things in the
room move or talk
to you? That's what
happens to Bunny in
the play!
• How long does
it take you to go to sleep? What do
you think about while you're falling
asleep?
5
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
Working with New Vocabulary in the Play
• mush—Mush is warm cereal, often
cornmeal porridge. Bunny eats
mush before bed the same way
babies are fed a bottle right before
bedtime; a warm tummy helps the
child get to sleep.
Warm/Cool
Look at a picture of the Great
Green Room in the book. What
time of year is it? What kind of
food tastes good when it's cold
outside? Name some of your
favorite cold weather foods.
What kind of food tastes good
when it's hot outside? Why?
Name some of your favorites.
• knitting—Knitting is the way socks,
mittens, sweaters, and scarves
are made. Yarn is moved between
needles and the stitches interlock
the yarn. It used to be a common
hand craft; now most
knitting is done by
machine.
If a teacher in your
school knows how
to knit, have a short
demonstration.
Identify which things
in the Great Green
Room are knitted
(mittens, socks).
Knitting Words with Rhyme
As the Old Lady tries to get Bunny
to calm down and go to sleep, she knits
and counts her stitches: "knit one purl
two," that is, how many stitches go over
or under to make the pattern.
Her words make patterns, too,
especially with rhyme, an aural way
of stitching lines together. Also in this
passage the words themselves seem
to be falling asleep and sliding into
nonsense.
ACTIVITY
Join in this dialogue and find
more rhyme words to complete
the pattern in place of the play's
word in brackets:
Old Lady:
Knit one purl two
Knit one purl two
Knit some purl ______ [glue]
(what other words rhyme with
two?)
Mouse:
One purl knit two
Knit two purl three
Purl four knit ______ [me]
(what other words rhyme with three?)
Continue with your own knit/purl
rhymes.
• pandemonium—shouting and uproar, chaos.
Hearing Pandemonium
Ask the class to recognize when or where they've heard
too many voices being too loud and uncontrolled.
Can recess or sports day or sports events on tv turn into
pandemonium? When?
6
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
Working with New Vocabulary: Constellations
Constellations the Play Names
• Orion's dog
• the Big Dipper
• Cancer the Crab
• Draco the Dragon
• the Gemini twins
• Hercules
• Pegasus the flying horse
• Leo the Lion
• constellation—a group of bright
stars that form a recognizable
pattern or picture imagined by the
viewer's imagination
Seeing Real Constellations
Look at the patterns for Orion, the
Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper, all of
which are very visible in the winter sky.
Notice how the stars form anchor points
for the shape of the figure.
Then have a parent take you outside
and identify these stars in the sky—go
see Orion, the Big Dipper, the Little
Dipper, and the North Star. Imagine
the figures.
Constellations on the Ceiling
Make pin pricks in a dark piece
of paper in the shape of these
constellations and shine them on the
ceiling with a flashlight.
Make Your Own Constellations
The ancients put their favorite
heroes in the stars; who would you like
to see in the stars?
Give out paper and sticker stars
and let students make their own
constellations by drawing a favorite
figure and putting in the star anchor
points (or vice versa). Be sure to write
the constellation's name on it!
DIPPERS
Orion the hunter, a bright
winter constellation
The North Star
Although we usually sight
the North Star by the Dippers,
the Dippers are actually part
of the Big Bear and Little Bear
(Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) seen
above (summer angle).
Polaris, the North Star, appears
to rotate around a point nearest true
north in the northern hemisphere. It
was once used by sailors to navigate.
You find it by finding the Big Dipper
and sighting a line across from the
edge of its cup to the next bright star.
The Dippers rotate around the sky during
the year. In winter, the Big Dipper appears to
be standing on its handle. Between the Dippers
is the tail of Draco the Dragon.
7
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
Meet the Moon
The craggy surface of the
moon, marked by craters from
ancient impacts
• Earth has one moon. Some other
planets have more than one moon.
• It is our nearest neighbor
in the sky and was actually
formed about the same time
as the solar system and Earth
formed 4.5 billion years ago
when something hit the Earth
and dislodged chunks that made
the moon.
• The moon has no light of
its own. We only see sunlight reflected
from its surface to earth.
• The moon is 239,000 miles from
Earth. That's more than 9 times the
distance around the Earth's equator.
• The moon's diameter is 2,000
miles and it has a surface area the
size of Africa.
• We only see one side of the moon
because it turns on its axis just like the
Earth turns.
• The moon circles ("orbits") the
Earth every 27.3 days.
• It takes the moon 29.5 days to go
through all its phases, so the phases
occur at different times each month.
• It gets very hot and very cold on
the moon; its highs can be 260º F. and
its lows -280º F.
• The moon once had active
volcanoes, and the smooth parts of the
moon's surface are actually dark lava
plains, although Galileo, the first man
to see them with a telescope, called
them "seas."
• Meteors kept hitting the moon and
caused the impact craters we still see
on its surface.
• The moon has no air, no
atmosphere, and so no weather. That
means its rocks and dust are much
closer to their original conditions than
weathered rocks and soil on Earth and
why scientists study moon rocks to learn
about Earth and the solar system.
• On July 21, 1969, U.S. astronaut
Neil Armstrong was the first man to step
on the moon. The U.S. space program
brought back 843 pounds of moon rocks
and soil for study.
• The moon's gravity causes our
tides—two high tides and two low tides
every day.
The Man in the Moon? It's a Rabbit!
Yes, in Western countries we say
we see a Man in the Moon, but in Asian
countries, they see a Rabbit. No wonder
Bunny says goodnight to the Moon!
What figures do you see when you
look at the splotches and patterns on
the moon's surface?
8
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
Learn about the Phases of the Moon
Chart the Moon's Phases
In the materials at
Mensa for Kids:
http://www.us.mensa.org/
linkservid/F023E7C6EED9-1EEF5D6097781440A73D/
there is a month-long moon
chart that students can draw
in what they see. But the
moon is up at different times
in different phases so know
when to look:
• new moon rises at dawn,
• first quarter moon at midmorning,
• full moon at sunset,
• last quarter moon at
midnight (so look for it
low in the western sky
when school starts).
Make OREO Moon
Phases
Have students recreate
the chart above on a paper
plate using halves of Oreo
cookies, scraping off icing
until it looks like the moon at
each phase. Draw an Earth
in the middle and color the
plate's sun side yellow.
We say the moon changes—
sometimes it's a bright ball in the sky
and sometimes just a sliver or almost
invisible. Actually the moon doesn't
change­—how it looks depends on how
much sunlight we see hitting it as it
circles ("orbits") the earth. We call these
different appearances the "phases of
the moon."
The moon orbits counterclockwise
around the Earth, so read the chart
above from right to left from the sunlight
side at the right (go backwards from
3:00 position). The moon "waxes" or
grows until it is full (fully illuminated by
sunlight) and then "wanes" or the light
shrinks until it is "new" again.
:
Show the Moon Phases
• Get a powerful flashlight (the
sun), a student (the Earth), and
a medium-sized ball (the moon).
• Dim the room and position the
flashlight with the student
standing facing its light.
• The student holds the ball
just above head height—can
the student see any light
on his/her side of the ball?
No—that's a "new moon." Then
the student slowly turns left
(counterclockwise) in a circle,
just like the moon does around
the Earth, by taking 8 steps. At
each step the student stops and
describes how much of the ball's
surface he or she now sees lit.
• You may want to have another
student sit at each of the eight
stopping positions as sighting
points for the steps.
9
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
Working with the Songs in the Play
The play is filled with lively songs
that engage childhood experience.
If your class likes or remembers one
particular song, follow up with an activity
or short discussion.
Mr. Nobody, the Blame Game, and Responsibility
"It wasn't me"­—the typical answer
when something is awry or broken or
needs to be answered for. The Old
Lady pursues it when Bunny tries this
dodge, "Then WHO?" Of course the
answer is "Nobody," which ushers in a
funny, satiric song inverting what just
happened, because in the song Mr.
Nobody is the one who misbehaves
and blames it all on us.
• What are better strategies when
something goes wrong than just blaming
it on Mr. Nobody? When should you get
help when something goes wrong?
When is Mr. Nobody an excuse for just
misbehaving?
The Runaway Bunny
This song offers a good opportunity
to ask students what a story says or
means to them. It can say many different
things to different people.
The chorus of the song is "You'll
never get away," but there are many
more things that story can say. What
do you and your students hear from the
story? What might your chorus be?
The Runaway Bunny illustration used
on the wall in Goodnight Moon
The Cow Jumped over the Moon!
The Nursery Rhyme
"Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the
moon,
The little Dog laughed to
see such sport,
And the Dish ran away with
the Spoon."
"Hey Diddle Diddle" is an old English
nursery rhyme of no certain meaning
(some theories even link it to the constellations).
In the play, the Cow tries to jump
the Moon three times. The song "Hey
Diddle Diddle" begins this series of
attempts, but by the third time the song
is a pep talk called "Positive Attitude,"
a song about believing that you can
do things—the "I know I can" idea.
The Cat, Dog, and Dish/Spoon are a
team encouraging the Cow to give it
one more try, and of course she finally
succeeds.
Does a baby learn to walk with her
first step? Or talk with his first sound?
What things are the students trying to
learn? How important is trying?
10
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
More Songs: "Loose Tooth" and "Tooth Fairy"
Do rabbits really wear
pajamas and sleep in a bed like
ours? Is this story telling us about
real rabbits or about ourselves?
(Publisher HarperCollins "Bunny"
toy packaged with book)
How to Insult a Bunny
Call it a rodent. Rabbits,
which are mammals, were at
one time classified as rodents.
Not any more!
The Mouse has lost a tooth and the
Bunny loses a tooth during the play,
then leaves it under his pillow. The
song's point is that it's OK to lose a tooth
because you soon get a new one—and
a dime (obviously pre-inflation).
Yet the play and the song take an
archaic view of dentistry—they say to tie
a string around the tooth, tie the string
to a door, and slam the door. Don't do
it! Even though that may have been
the way Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn
pulled teeth, modern dentists do not
recommend anyone but the child or a
dentist actually putting fingers on the
tooth and pulling.
Most baby teeth start falling out by
themselves as the permanent teeth
work their way up below them, starting
about the time the child turns 5 or 6.
Girls tend to start losing teeth before
boys do. The teeth fall out in the order
they came in, so the lower front teeth
fall out first, followed by the upper
front teeth.
The singing Tooth Fairy proudly
fetches the tooth, a sequence that
segues into "North Star" as the tooth
fairies working in the Dollhouse turn
lost teeth into new stars.
Dance Like a Bunny
Teacher Resources
Many elementary dance terms are
self-explanatory, and these are the
terms used in the songs in the play.
A shuffle, a slide, a turn—all can be
shorter or longer or done with a flair,
but they are a clear basic movement
of the body.
What about the bunny hop? In the
early 20th century there was a popular
ballroom dance called the "bunny hug,"
but the bunny hop is even simpler—you
just hop on two feet forward like a bunny
would—if it were two-footed.
You can have your own ballroom
sequence of shuffles, slides, turns, and
bunny hops to a lively melody right in
the classroom.
• A Goodnight Moon coloring page @
http://www.nald.ca/library/learning/
homekits/gdntmoon/page14.html
• Photocopiable page of color pieces
from Goodnight Moon story @
http://www.feltfantasies.com/
images/Goodnight_Moon.jpg
• 4 coloring pages on "Hey Diddle
Diddle" @ http://www.niteowl.org/
kids/diddle.html
• A coloring book about rabbit care
@ http://rabbit.org/articles/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/colorbook.
pdf
• Find out what phase the moon was
in when you were born (need date,
time, and time zone) @ http://
tycho.usno.navy.mil/vphase.html
• Dental hygiene for kids with cool
graphics @
http://www.healthyteeth.org/
and lesson plans for oral health @
http://www.dent.umich.edu/media/
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
Student Response Sheet
I saw Goodnight Moon at ASF on ___________.
Let me tell you about it:
Here's the shape
I see on the moon:
Goodnight
Moon
adapted by Chad Henry
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