Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is a popular bedtime book with children and parents. Try playing one of these three games with children, so they can interact with one of their favorite books.
Fill in the Blank
These games do not need to be a competition. There doesn’t need to be a winner or loser. You might look at the game more like an interactive activity.
In this fill-in-the-blank game, children who are familiar with the text can tell their parents the objects that the bunny says, “Good night” to. For example, you and your child can look at the illustration of the cow jumping over the moon, and you can say “Good night,” and your child can say, “To the cow jumping over the moon.” In this game, children learn that with picture books and easy readers, which are the first type of books they learn to read, there are often context clues in the illustrations, and these clues help them read books until they learn more vocabulary and reading skills.
I Spy
Another game you can play is a version of the popular child’s game, I Spy. When looking at an illustration, you say: “I spy with my little eye. . .something red.” Then children look at the illustration and try to find something red. When they guess the correct object, it is their turn to give the clue.
You can work on different skills with children when playing this game. For example, to work on rhyming words, you say: “I spy with my little eye something that rhymes with spoon.” or To work on size, you say: “I spy with my little eye something that is bigger than a cat.” Have fun with this version of I Spy and work on different skills with your child.
In Your Child’s Room
Goodnight Moon is often read at bedtime. You might want to play an easy and quiet game with your children that focuses on the concepts in the book, but doesn’t get them too excited right before they go to sleep. This game also introduces children to the comprehension skill of making personal connections with the stories they read. With this Goodnight Moon game, children are comparing what they see in the illustrations of the bunny’s room to the objects they find in their rooms. For example, the bunny has a rocking chair in his room. Does your child have a rocking chair in his room? What about a clock? Or even a picture of nursery rhymes?
Parents should allow children to notice objects in the illustrations and then point to these objects in their own rooms. If children have difficulty making the connection between their rooms and the bunny’s, then parents can help with statements such as, “In the bunny’s room, I see a comb. I wonder if I see a comb in your room?” If children still don’t make the connection, the parent can go to the object, pick it up, and say: “Look, you have a comb just like the bunny.”
Do you have any ideas for activities to do with this beloved children’s book?
This post is part of the series: Goodnight Moon
Read Goodnight Moon to your young child, and do these activities with him at home. You can also use these activities in a preschool classroom.
