Huff and Puff's April Showers (Totline Teaching Tale) - Hardcover

PreSchool-Grade 2-Two insipid, rhyming tales. Although the companion activities that appear at the end of each title will have some utility in classroom situations, they do not redeem these books. In April Showers, Huff and Puff are two childlike clouds who strive to earn money to buy their mother a Mother's Day present; they end up giving her the gift of Spring-May flowers. Appended activities include suggestions for singing the Huff and Puff tale to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." Other activities show how to make a rain gauge, raise plants, and create flower murals. In Around the World, the two clouds first visit England, where they see "a big clock tower," and later pass by the Eiffel Tower, some mountains, the pyramids, and the Great Wall before floating home. The activities here focus on travel, crafts (African drums, Russian nesting dolls, Chinese fans, Egyptian pyramids), foods (Finnish breakfast cakes, Chinese fortune cookies, African peanut squares), and postcards. The art in both books shows cheery and realistic scenes that help define the texts. Black-and-white line drawings illustrate the activity pages. Quality theme-based stories and poems are available in the collections gathered by Caroline Feller Bauer. Good Apple Publications and Teacher Ideas Press publish many titles that provide much more value for the money.
Sharron McElmeel, Cedar Rapids Community Schools, IA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.