Extension Activities for Children’s Books:



Runny Babbit by Shel Silverstein

Additional Related Stories for Children:

Tongue Twisters by Pam Rosenberg. Simple tongue twisters grouped by subjects such as places, travel, kids, and school.

Oh Say Can You Say? by Dr. Seuss. A collection of nonsensical tongue twisters.

Word Play: Ambigrams and Reflections on the Art of the Ambigrams by John London. Calligraphy and artist renditions of words that can be read right side up or upside down. This book, usually shelved in the adult section of libraries, will delight a younger audience as well.

Book Extension Activities:

Writing Extension:

Guessing Game: Have the children look at the cover of the title and illustration on the front of the book to determine the structure of the poems. Read a poem. Then have the children guess, line-by-line, what you have said. Begin by having the children listen to figure out the line. If they need further assistance write out the line on a black or dry erase board.

I Can Do it Too!: Have the children write a poem in the fashion Shel Silverstein used for this book. They should write out the poem normally then, go back and switch the first letters of two words in each line. Finally, the children should share the poem with the class and challenge them to figure out what they wrote.

Let’s Work on it Together: Have the children get into small groups to make a list of things like Shel Silverstein did with poems such as “Runny’s Rittle Leminders” or “Runny Loes to Gunch”. Each group member will have a chance to see if the class/group can guess what has been said for each item. Finally, the class can guess the topic of the list.

Language Arts Discussion:

Lost in Translation: How is Runny Babbit’s way of speaking different than ours? Why do you think Shel Silverstein chose to write the book this way? Does “translating” a poem from Silverstein’s style to regular English change the meaning of the poem?

Mad Libs: Mad Libs are a great way to get kids thinking about the different parts of speech, and using words humorously. A Mad Lib is a fun word game. Usually, a story is missing several nouns, places, adjectives, verbs, etc. A reader asks the group for random words for the missing parts of speech. When the words are filled in, the story is read with a hilarious outcome. A good online source for Mad Libs for one player: . Free printable teacher-guided Mad Libs: .

History Extensions: Who was Rev. Spooner?: The author uses a writing technique in the book called spoonerisms to add humor to his poems. Rev. Spooner was a lecturer and later Dean at Oxford University who frequently interchanged the first letters of words around on accident. Research more about some of Rev. Spooner’s influence on language.

Art Extension: Simple Line Drawings: When the students finish writing their own poems, have them illustrate them using simple lines in the manner of Shel Silverstein.

Dramatic/Presentation Extensions: Acting Out: The author was also an actor and loved the theatre. Divide children into small groups and have them create scripts based on poems in Runny Babbit.



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