A Spooky Stew

If you are unable to integrate Halloween spookiness into your curriculum, think beyond the ghosts and ghouls!

My recent post on wombats and the many comments and emails I received about how utterly fabulous wombats are, got me thinking. There are so many wonderful wombat stories, and one of my favourites is 'Wombat Stew' by Marcia K. Vaughan.

Wombat Stew 

Wombat Stew is the story of a dingo who captures a nice fat wombat, with plans to cook him up in a stew. Various other Australian bush animals happen by and offer Dingo suggestions as to what he should put in his stew before adding the Wombat. Dingo follows their advice, adding all sorts of weird and wonderful bush ingredients. In the end, Dingo is encouraged to give the stew a taste test, and let's just say that our lovely plump wombat friend is saved! The text has a lovely, captivating rhythm and the illustrations are very entertaining. 

 

A Non-Spooky Halloween Alternative

The billy can that is used to make the stew, looks a lot like a cauldron! It would be great to read to your class in the lead up to Halloween along with, or instead of stories of witches, spells and cauldrons. Meg's Cauldron is one you find find appropriate for kindergarten.

After reading Wombat Stew, you could possibly follow it up with a writing lesson on procedural texts. Talk with your class about the purpose of procedural texts and the organisational features of them.

Procedural Text Project

My daughter and I jointly constructed part of a procedure for Wombat Stew (see photo above). We just did the first half - 'what you need' part. In the classroom, I might have done the what to do part as well.

We cut a simple billy (cauldron) from black paper, and a worried looking wombat from brown paper. I then helped her recall the text and find the ingredients that were needed to make wombat stew and wrote each of a different piece of coloured paper. Making an enlarged version of the procedure will help students to understand the organisational features of the text type. You can have it in your classroom to not only talk about and discuss, but as a decorative display.

Here is a writing worksheet that you may like to use in conjunction with Wombat Stew or another story in the upcoming weeks. Your students can decide what they will make in their cauldron and list the ingredients they will need. 

I'd love to share it with you from Google Drive: Wombat Stew Writing Page