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In the Great Green Room is a resource of five lesson plans that provide you and your classroom or family with five pre-show sessions in anticipation of attending the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ production of Goodnight Moon. Each session is designed with step-by-step facilitation that activates ideas and themes based upon the beloved picture book of ‘good nights’ by Margaret Wise Brown (words) and Clement Hurd (pictures).

The sessions invite you and your students to return to the book after you have done an initial reading of Goodnight Moon, to expand ideas and themes suggested within the book’s text and images. Session 4 is specific to The Runaway Bunny, also by Brown and Hurd, which is also used in the production.

Note that most versions of the book do not have page numbers so each session will indicate what text to begin and end on.

Each session follows the following sequence of activities – with content changing within each session:

• Think About: Each session opens with an invitation for students to look upon and reflect on a specific sequence of the book’s text and/or illustration.
• Page to Stage: Each session incorporates a different theatre-based learning activity exploring the selected text and/or illustration.
• Look For: Each session closes with prompts that invite students to consider while attending Goodnight Moon.

Each activity can be modified to fit any content, so once you play these activities for Goodnight Moon, feel free to modify them to activate other curriculum, circle-time content, or favorite book titles.

Session 1 | Big Picture Little Picture

Read Aloud

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Pictures by Clement Hurd
Harper Trophy – Harper Collins Publisher | ISBN: 9789990926378

• This lesson activates various pages of the book. See below for specific pages.

Think About

Did you notice how the pictures in the book change?

• Sometimes an illustration is in full color, sometimes in grey-tone.
• Sometimes the whole of the great green room is shown, sometimes an up-close illustration of a detail in the room is shown.
• Why do you think Margaret Wise Brown (the author) and Clement Hurd (the illustrator chose to tell the story this way?

The book is also very specific about time. Look at the pictures of the clock: 7:00, 7:40, 8:00, the change in the great green room’s lighting, and Little Bunny going from being wide awake to being sleepy.

• How is your bedtime experience similar or different to Little Bunny’s?

Look at the picture of the three little bears sitting in chairs (p. 4) and the little house (p. 19). Many readers of the book think the room the bears are sitting in is within the little house as there are similar curtains in both. The bears’ room also has the same ‘cow jumping over the moon’ picture as the one in the great green room.

• Why do you think Margaret Wise Brown (the author) and Clement Hurd (the illustrator) decided on making such connections?

Page to Stage

1. Open Goodnight Moon to the two-page illustration on pages 9 and 10 [text: Goodnight room].
2. Have students silently identify one object in the room. This activity works best if the book’s central characters or the other animals are not used.
3. Invite one student to the front of the room (or if playing in a circle, to the circle’s center).
4. Establish that the student will create a body shape (statue/duplicate) of the chosen object. Once in position, the student announces the name of the object.
5. Establish that once the student is in the statue shape, one at a time, up to four additional players can join the center player and add a detail to the object by shaping their bodies into a statue of the detail. Details do not have to be the same as in the book.
   Example of play: Student 1: I am the fireplace. Student 2: I am the fire. Student 3: I am the smoke. Student 4: I am the chimney.
   
6. Play continues until each student has the opportunity to be the activity’s initiating object.

Look For

In the production, look for all of the objects in the book within the stage set. How does the production bring the great green room to life? Does the production add any new characters to the great green room?

Session 2 | Rhyme

Read Aloud

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Pictures by Clement Hurd
Harper Trophy – Harper Collins Publisher | ISBN: 9789990926378
• BEGIN: In the great green room . . . (p. 1)
• END: And a little toyhouse. And a young mouse. (p. 6)

Think About

The book begins with a sense of suspense! See the dash [ – ] at the end of the first page? The dash invites us to wait for the page to turn before we learn what else is in the great green room.

The book uses two types of rhymes. End rhymes (such as kittens and mittens – the final words in a line of text sound the same [they rhyme]) and slant rhymes (such as room, moon, and balloon – the words in a line of text share the same vowel sound).

Page to Stage

PREK AND KINDERGARTEN

1. Arrange the class in a circle (standing or sitting).
2. Have students number off in sequence: 1, 2, 3, and 4 so that every student is either a 1, 2, 3, or a 4.
3. Establish that 1s will be the /at/ sound; 2s will be the /ing/ sound; 3s will be the /ake/ sound; 4’s will be the /eep/ sound.
4. For each round of play, have one group come into the center of the circle, making an inner circle. The inner circle will play the activity, the outer circle will watch the activity.
5. Establish that you will read a word. If the word ends with the same sound as that of the inner group, each member of the inner group must exchange places with each other.
6. Establish that players must move as an example of the word (a noun) or in the manner of the word (a verb).
7. Establish that if the word does not end in the same sound as that of the inner group, the inner group must stay still.
8. Establish that if a player moves when the word does not end with the group’s sound, that player must sit out for a round.

Examples of words to call in order: bat, hop, cat | spring, log, king | quake, bite, snake | sheep, car, creep [or have the class create their own list for you to call from].

1ST AND 2ND GRADE

1. This activity can be played in a circle or at students’ desks.
2. Establish that you will read a short poem but the final word in the poem will be missing.
3. Establish that if students recognize what the missing word is, without saying anything, working individually, they should shape their bodies into a statue of what the word is. For example if the word is window, players would shape their bodies into being windows.

Examples of poems to read (Riddles-For-Kids.org):

She’s the head of a hive
On a chessboard she is seen
She’s in a deck of cards
Which means that she is a: [queen]

If you’ve lots of letters to mail
Then this product can help you cope\
Addresses and stamps go on the front
Which means it is an: [envelope]

Look For

During the production, listen for rhymes in the production’s songs. You might also recognize a nursery rhyme involving a cat, a fiddle, a cow, the moon, a laughing dog, and a dish and spoon.

Session 3 | Nobody

Read Aloud

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Pictures by Clement Hurd
Harper Trophy – Harper Collins Publisher | ISBN: 9789990926378
• BEGIN: Goodnight nobody (p. 23)
• END: Goodnight nobody (p. 23)

Think About

• Why do you think this page has no illustration?
• What do you think ‘nobody’ would look like as an illustration?
• Is ‘nobody’ the same as an imaginary friend?

Page to Stage

The American poet, Emily Dickinson, wrote this poem published in 1891:

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you Nobody too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know!

How dreary to be Somebody!
How public like a Frog,
To tell one’s name the livelong June
To an admiring Bog!

1. Write the poem on the board (or reproduce copies for students) so that everyone can recite the poem aloud as a group.
2. Review vocabulary unfamiliar to students.
3. Have students read the poem in the voice of Nobody – how is Nobody’s voice different than their own?
4. Ask students to consider a replacement for Frog – what or who else makes a lot of noise regardless of who is/isn’t listening?
   a. List suggestions on the board.
5. Working as a class, select one of the above suggestions, then try and craft a new ending line with a final word that rhymes with the new word suggested to replace Frog.
6. Have students recite the new poem.

Look For

During the production, listen for a song about Nobody and look to see how Nobody becomes a somebody in the
production.

Session 4 | The Runaway Bunny

Read Aloud

The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. Pictures by Clement Hurd
Harper Trophy – Harper Collins Publisher | ISBN: 9780007494842

• Read The Runaway Bunny aloud in its entirety.

Think About

1. What are similarities between Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny?
2. Do you think the characters in the two books are the same – why or why not?
3. In what ways are the drawing styles of the pictures similar and different between the two books?
4. Can you find the same picture in both books – look carefully at one of the framed pictures in the great green room. If you look carefully, you might also be able to find a copy of The Runaway Bunny on the bookshelf in the great green room.
5. Did you know that the characters in Goodnight Moon were supposed to be humans but Clement Hurd, drew rabbits better than people so the author, Margaret Wise Brown, changed the words to go with the pictures.
6. What animals or objects would you replace the bunnies with? Is your character choice based on what you can draw best or is your choice based on characters you think would make the story sillier or sweeter?

Page to Stage

1. Have students select a partner.
2. Partners face each other.
3. One player begins by saying, “I am a ___“, completing the sentence with an object (from the book or not). S/he then creates a statue of the word with his/her body. Example: “I am a lamp.”
4. The partner responds, “If you are a (repeats the object), then I am a ___”, completing the sentence with another object or detail that is in relationship to the initiating object. S/he then creates a statue of the word with his/her body. Example: “If you are a lamp, then I am the cord.”
5. Play continues with each player responding to each other with an object/detail in relationship to theaforementioned object/detail. Example: “If you are the cord, then I am the socket.”

The activity can be modified as a circle activity with students responding to the object/detail to the player on their right.

Look For

During the production, listen for a song inspired by the book, The Runaway Bunny. This song will tell you who the characters in the illustration are in relation to the character of Little Bunny.

Session 5 | Goodnight Noises Everywhere

Read Aloud

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Pictures by Clement Hurd
Harper Trophy – Harper Collins Publisher | ISBN: 9789990926378

• BEGIN: (p. 29)
• END: Goodnight noises everywhere. (p. 30)

Think About

1. How do you know, from this illustration, that the story is over?
2. Sit quietly for 30 seconds listening to the sounds in your classroom. What did you hear? Do you think the difference between a sound and a noise is this: a sound is something that you recognize and know what it is and a noise is something that you don’t recognize? If not, how would you describe the difference between the two words? Does volume inform the difference between a sound and a noise? How?
3. What are sounds that you hear at bedtime? Is there a difference between daytime sounds and nighttime sounds where you sleep? If so, what are they? If not, how come they remain the same?

Page to Stage

1. Have everyone in the class choose a nighttime sound and then make that sound in a loop (the sound is repeated over and over).
2. Divide the class into fourths (or small groups of five or six students).
3. Establish that one small group will perform the activity in front of the rest of the class but every group will have an opportunity to perform. Arrange the first group in front of the class in a curved line facing you and the rest of the class
   a. You should be sitting on the ground or on a seat that does not block the audience’s view.
4. Establish that you will be the conductor and that the members of this group will be a symphony of nighttime sounds.
5. Establish that you will point to the group as a whole or in threes (trio) or pairs (duet) or individually (solo). When you point, whoever is being pointed at must make their night time sound in a loop (the sound is repeated over and over) until you point to someone else at which time the player(s) who were making their sounds go silent.
6. Establish that when you point high, volume should be full, and that when you point low, volume should be at a whisper. When you point but move up and down as you point, the volume should vary based on the direction (high for full, low for whisper).
7. Repeat the activity so that every small group has an opportunity to perform.

Look For

During the production, listen for a final song inspired by all the words in the book. In what way(s) is what you see on stage at the end of the production the same as the book’s final illustration? How is it different?