Henry and Mudge Activities

I use the book with my Cynthia Rylant author study. After reading the first book, I have the kids write a new adventure for Henry and Mudge. We share the stories and then I put them into a class book called Henry and Mudge's Next
Adventure. The kids loved it and their stories were cute.

After reading the first book where Mudge gets lost, my class made "Lost" posters. On the posters, the children drew a picture of Mudge and listed all his physical characteristis.

With H. and M. and the Starry Night we made a bulletin board forest. Students picked a forest animal to draw, color, and add to the board. We investigated what tracks their animal would leave and made the tracks to go in the forest also. Of course, the class can continue to add plants, rocks or anything you would like to study. We used story starters linking the story with the forest. example: When the deer saw H. and M. they were.....
There are lots of places to go with writing ideas, and the kids are really excited about the project each year!
Some things to do:
oral report about their forest animal
making labels with animal names, body characteristics, etc. (great for ELL students)
These kinds of activities also spark interest if you want to have an H. and M. Reading Club. If they read every book in the series, and pass the A.R. test, they get a little stuffed reading monkey pal. (50 cents at scholastic warehouse sale) It's always a pleasant surprise to see how many are able to read all of those books!

I just did a Henry and Mudge activity with some of the kids in my class. We made Mudge out of a paper the size of a small lunch bag and then cut out a puddle of water. I cut a slit in the puddle and slid Mudge into it so it looked like he was playing in a puddle of water!

Hello fellow 2nd grade teacher,

I just got finished reading Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night with my students; which is in our Reading Basal.

After reading the story and doing activities for the week, we had an indoor campfire on Friday. The students made wood, fire, and rocks out of paper. I brought in a hiking backpack, flashlights, marshmallows and graham crackers, and the students had written scary stories to share with the class around the "fire". One student cut holes in a piece of construction paper and we put it on the overhead. When we turned out the lights it made stars in the sky. Also, we played games like The Telephone Game where students whisper something around the circle and see if the message changes by the end. The kids loved it!

Hope this helps,
Mark
-havefunteaching.com/

After we read the story - I typed up a paper with 8 sentneces from the story. I had the kids write them on bones and then feed them to their paper Mudge they had made in the order in which they happened in the story! They had a great time and was super sequencing practice! :)

We have the first Henry and Mudge story in our basal. One of the activities my kids love is to write their own story using the same characters. We talk about realistic fiction and how it can be real events. Some of our stories have been great. This can be done in cooperative groups, never ending story format (everyone writes a sentence) or individually. The illustrations are priceless.

We have also done text-to-text comparisions with Clifford...venn diagrams are perfect. Letter writing to either Henry or Mudge. A visit from a dog breeder or Humane Society (one year we did a community service project for the Humane Society in conjunction with the story).

BTW-Our school just did a "Dress as a Book Character" Day to kick off our Book Fair. One of my boys came as Henry with the biggest stuffed dog I have ever seen...obviously Mudge. It was really cute.

Steph

I've been using the H & M series as a springboard for choosing just right books. I read it, "sell it," talk about the friendship between the two main characters and discuss how important it is for us to read the first book in the series so that we know how the characters relationship began. Sometimes kids in my class think H & M is too easy but when I read it as a read aloud, suddenly they all want to read it. Then I spend a week or two on a series study. Again, when I sell the idea of Amelia Bedelia and Cam Jansen, etc. they all gravitate to those books and are not so quick to read level M books before they are ready. My job of teaching the importance of choosing just right books becomes so much easier. The fun of the workshop for my kids is in the share at the end. They can't wait to get up in front of the class and talk about what they learned about themselves as readers.

activity that is artsy, and not too difficult. It is first grade friendly! I have all the different pieces of Mudge's face copied onto different colored (mostly different shades of brown) construction paper. After they cut out all the different pieces, they put them together to make his face. It is fun and the kiddos are so proud of this piece of art.
If you email your address to me, I'll send you all the forms for his face....you will copy the different parts onto different pieces of construction paper...and you're all ready to go! It's REALLY simple and fun!

dborch

Here are the patterns for Mudge from dborch. This was originally posted on the 1st grade board, but I know Henry & Mudge are used in K-3. She sent me the patterns and an example and I finally got them scanned to post. There are 2 pages of patterns and I also have a picture of the example she sent.
Thanks dborch!

Here's a picture of the finished project.

Have student create puppets for the characters in one of the Henry and Mudge books. Have them retell the story using the puppets.

Have the students choose a scene from a Henry and Mudge story. Then they should visualize the scene and make an illustration. Depending on the students ability, you could have them write a brief description at the bottom of the picture explaining the scene.

Have your class read Henry and Mudge and the Great Grandpas. You could take a field trip to a local senior citizens center or invite some seniors to your class. Have the students and seniors pair and read books together.