The Napping House

The Napping House

Written by Audrey Wood

Illustrated by Don Wood

Published in 1984

Grade Level: 1st-3rd

Synopsis: The Napping House is an engaging story of a napping house, where a granny lies sound asleep and snoring on her cozy bed.  Soon she is joined by a dreaming child, who lies right on top of her.  As the story progresses, animals are added to the bed with the sleeping people.  A dozing dog sleeps on top of the dreaming child.  A snoozing cat sleeps on top of the dozing dog.  A slumbering mouse sleeps on top of the snoozing cat.  Finally, a wakeful flea sits on top of the pile.  The flea wakes the mouse, who wakes the cat, who wakes the dog, who wakes the child, who wakes the snoring granny, which all leads to the breaking of the cozy bed.  The story ends with all the characters wide awake and enjoying the beautiful morning in the front yard of the house that is no longer a napping house.

Theme/Skill: There is a lot of repetition in Wood's The Napping House.  The repetition should help students recall the events and sequence of the story.  The skill that they should acquire from several readings of this book is retelling and plot/sequence of events.  Perhaps the teacher could introduce and define the term 'chronological order' and talk about how it appears in this story. 

Pre-reading activity: Introduce students to the animals that appear in The Napping House.  Ask students what sounds these animals make.  Ask them if the sounds are loud or quiet, deep or soft, etc.  Show the students the items you have brought in to symbolize the sounds of the animals.  Ask students to match each sound with an object.  These will be used in the post-reading activity. 

Post-reading activity: Print worksheets and other activities from Making Learning Fun.  Students could use cut outs of characters in the story to answer sequence of events questions.  Students could also identify words that rhyme with common and repeated words from the story.  After discussing the story, give students the items that symbolize the sounds that the characters in the story might make while sleeping/snoring.  Read the story again while individual students use the object to make the sound of each animal.  For instance, one student may hold a squeaky toy to represent the mouse while another student may use a drum to represent the sound of a dog. 

Assessment: The lesson will be an informal assessment of how well students are able to understand sequencing and symbolism.  Students should be able to define the two, perhaps not in complete sentences, but nonetheless they should be able to identify characteristics of each. 

Reflection: Audrey and Don Wood have created a fun story for children.  The story has teachable elements in it as well as silly situations.  My kindergarten teacher created a great program for my kindergarten graduation (1994).  One of the acts in our show was a reading of The Napping House.  The big board version of the book sat on an easel.  While my teacher read the story, six students stood at the front of the stage.  Each represented a character from the book; a snoring granny, a dreaming child, a dozing dog, a snoozing cat, a slumbering mouse, and a wakeful flea.  When our part was read, we used our instrument to make the noise of the animal we represented.  In my opinion, this was a great way to read a story.  It made the reading memorable because it was so interactive and exciting.  To this day, I remember the story by heart. 

Recipients of the Caldecott Medal for King Bidgood's in the Bathtub