The following are ideas for using
Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me in the classroom.

• Submitted by Amy Samson

  For Kindgergarten and First Grade: Create a class bulletin board. Divide the class into four groups. Two groups will fingerpaint butcher paper dark blue for the night sky. Another group makes grass, trees, the moon, and stars out of construction paper. The fourth group is responsible for the girl, papa, the ladder, and the house. Put it together outside your classroom and you have a beautiful mural dedicated to Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me!

• Submitted by Frances Dixon

  As librarian, I have to find ways to link books with the real world. With Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, I actually had each student observe the moon. I put the students into small groups and they did research on the phases of the moon. We spent at least 3 weeks on the moon and the fourth week we all watched, at home, as the moon become full again.

• Submitted by Linda Helgason

  Creative Art project for kindergarten:
  1. Fingerpaint an 11X17 paper with dark blue paint.
  2. Using a small paper plate, cut out a phase of the moon.
  3. Color or paint the moon.
  4. Cut out stars from shiny gold or silver paper.
  5. Draw and cut out a ladder, a father, and a little girl.
  6. When the fingerpaint is dry, glue all items on the paper.
  7. Attach lick and stick stars over the picture.
  * This is an excellent creative art activity because each student’s creation is so unique.

• Submitted by Tracy Porter

  After reading Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, my second graders and I had a discussion about the myth of “the man in the moon.” The kids then took a piece of black construction paper and glued a crescent moon onto it. We added faces to our moons and glued tiny stars all over the black paper. We then wrote letters to the man in the moon. The children thought of questions they might want to ask the moon if they could. Their letters were very creative and it helped reinforce writing questions and using question marks. We stapled them together and each child had a book to keep.

• Submitted by Gretchen Pitts

  For a primary mathematics class at Oklahoma State University we decided to use Eric Carle books for a thematic unit to be embedded in primary (k-3) math. I used Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me as my selection and after reading the book, we built a human ladder in our classroom by sitting face to face/back to back. It was great fun and other topics used while creating the ladder were estimating how many students it would take to complete the ladder, we talked about the pattern that we were making, we counted ourselves, we counted by twos, (could also count by other numbers), then as extensions, I planned a center activity of building ladders and estimating materials such as toothpicks, craft sticks, pipe cleaners, etc. Also, we would make a graph of the student ’s estimates of too many, not enough or just right. This activity covered many of NCTM ’s standards and was very active. Hope you can try it!.

• Submitted by Debbie O’Shea

  I use Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me for an art project. Using blue tempera paint, the students completely paint a 9X12 sheet of white construction paper. After it dries, the students use flat toothpicks to make a ladder to the moon. Instruct the students to start by laying toothpicks for one side, then the steps, and finally the other side. This should help eliminate the problem of some toothpick steps being to long. A gray construction paper moon is glue to the paper. Using a sheet of white construction paper, draw and color Papa climbing the ladder to the moon. Glue Papa to the ladder. Add self-adhesive stars to finish the sky.

• Submitted by Hillary Theyer

  I use Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me for dance and creative movement. First we read the story, and as we come to the movement we act it out reaching for the moon, climbing the ladder, etc. After the story is finished, all the kids get white cardboard circles, and I play music and have the kids “dance ” with the moon. The boys are usually too shy, but I enlist a couple of story time regulars to be helpers and start dancing. We dance for a few minutes, and I take suggestions on movements we can all do such as spinning, holding the moon above our head, etc. It is very pretty to watch, and kids often “dance ” their books out of the library that day.

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