The following are ideas for using
The Very Quiet Cricket in the classroom.

• Submitted by Todd McCuen

  I teach children ages 5 through 17 at a Behavioral Health Treatment Center. This lesson using The Very Quiet Cricket lends itself to all of these ages. The older students enjoy the story as much as the younger ones, and they all love the ending. We spend time talking about the five senses and the sensory details in writing that make novels, short stories, and their stories come alive. With the younger children, I put objects in boxes and have them feel the objects and describe what they feel. Once we have a list, we try to guess what the object may be. I do the same with the other senses. For the older children, this is a great way to teach similes and metaphors. Then I read aloud The Very Quiet Cricket. We talk about the sensory details in the story and make a list on the board of what we found. I close the lesson by having the students write a story, including at least one detail for each of the five senses, more for older chlildren.

• Submitted by Kimberley Andrews

  After reading The Very Quiet Cricket with a group of second graders, I asked the children to think of another adjective and noun to write their own mini story. We brainstormed and came up with a list to start the students thinking. Some ideas were: The Very Hungry Girl, The Very Hungry Shark, etc. The kids enjoyed the activity and many wanted to share their stories with the class.

• Submitted by M. B. Clason

  For an insect unit, we used the book The Very Quiet Cricket. For authentic assessment, the students had to create an insect and label the body parts. The class made some wonderful community tissue papers. Each student chose one of the bugs from the book and made a collage picture of the bug. The students labelled the body parts and then researched at least one fact about their chosen insect. These creations were placed on a bulletin board and each student had to present their insect. Later the work went into their portfolio under the science section.

• Submitted by Teresa Jones

  We raise crickets in my classroom. We have had many generations in the last two years. I let the children observe them in their habitat all year long. Then I begin my questions during our study of the insects to see what they have observed. Children are very perceptive. I read The Very Quiet Cricket and hopefully we have babies at the time and we talk about which crickets are chirping and which are not. We make a cricket from construction paper and tissue paper paying close attention to the characteristics of crickets and insects. We talk about which are female and male. They finally discover the only chirping crickets are male.

• Submitted by Susan Allison

  After reading The Very Quiet Cricket to my class of pre-kindergartners we try to imagine what the male cricket was saying to the female cricket or what he may want to say to some of the other insects in the story. Then the children paint a picture of the cricket and the insect he may be speaking to, using the correct number of body parts, of course. When they have finished their painting, they dictate to the teacher what the cricket is saying to his friend. We put all the pages together to make a book. The children love to see their work in a book and to have the new story read to them!

• Submitted by Cynthia

  I use The Very Quiet Cricket with my first graders when we study Eric Carle. We read the book and talk about all the different ways to greet someone. We make a list and add new ones to it (even greetings in different languages.) Then each child recreates a new page for the book, picking different animals for the cricket to meet and the greeting that each animal will use. We make this into a class book to share with other students. We also read it when a new student moves into our class. They love it!

• Submitted by Angella Emmett

  The Very Quiet Cricket is a great book for use in the music classroom with small children. I played the role of a conductor and the children were a magnificent bug symphony. At first reading, the students were asked to make sounds for the characters in the story. (Immaginative - Discovery) Using hand signals for loud and quite, I led the group through the story a second time where each time we turned the page to see a new bug, I would read the story and then invite the symphony to make bug noises, (first quietly, then loud, louder, softer, stop...)

  They really enjoy the exercise and many times, this activity can make the shy kids come out of their shell. The key is to keep them focused on making their bug voices express the story line. It’s great fun!

• Submitted by Kim Deibert

  An art idea for The Very Quiet Cricket is to have the children draw a bug body on white art paper (teach about the body parts of insects first). I like to use Crayola watercolor pencil crayons for this. Also add antennae. Then have the children find textures around the room to rub onto tissue paper. Cut wings out of the textured paper and add to the bugs. Cut out around the bug and put on a buggy bulletin board.

• Submitted by Jennifer

  Last year, when my class studied insects, we got a bunch of crickets for the kids to observe and write about. They started to call the crickets grasshoppers. This led to a huge lesson on the difference between crickets and grasshoppers.

  They are in the same family. Grasshoppers have smaller antennae and they “chirp” by using their hind leg to their wings. Crickets have long antennae and they “chirp” with their wings. Only the males chirp.

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