A picture book can generate a thousand words. The book Good Night Gorila contains less then a dozen unique words but with it, I can generate a week’s work of lessons and discussions.

It’s not about how many words are in the book, it is about how many high frequency words I can use to describe it. I can add as much detail or as little detail as my students can handle.

Before the story I can build background knowledge about zoos and animals. Have you been to a zoo? Where? Which is your favorite zoo? Have you ever seen a gorila? Do you have a favorite animal? I can take a survey or launch a poll. I have them post their favorite animal on a padlet.

Here’s an example of the story being told in the simplest form.

And an example of the story being beefed up for upper levels.

I basically tell this story. There is a gorila. There is a mouse. Do you see the mouse? The mouse has a banana. There is a guard. The guard is tired. He is going home. He says goodbye to the little gorilla. The gorilla sees the keys of the guard. The little gorilla has a secret plan. What do you think he is going to do? The gorilla steals the keys. The little gorilla opens the door of the cage. He escapes. He does not close the door. The mouse escapes also with his banana. The gorilla and the mouse follow the guard. The guard does not see them. The guard says good night to the elephant and so on with the other animals. I can repeat key phrases like opens the door, closes the door, escapes, does not see, walks behind, says good night, sleeps, is afraid of, is not afraid of. I can describe the animals in more detail with colors and size. I can see if anyone is afraid of elephants, mice, lions or other animals. Here is an example of me telling the story in French and in Spanish.

I can make the setting cultural. I can make it the Parc Zoologique de Paris or Loro Parque in Madrid. We can investigate… do they have zoos in France and Spain, in all countries? We could then take a virtual field trip. We can make cultural comparisons. We can research and debate, are zoos good or bad for animals?

Reading skills like inferencing, sequencing, summarizing, and predicting can be incorporated throught questioning. Where do you think the animals are going? Are they going to run away? Is the wife angry? Is she afraid of the animals? How do you know? We can change the story or change the ending and have all the animals spend the night, or go on an adventure.

Open up a Jamboard, pair up students and play flyswatters or tic tac toe virtually. Afterwards, have students drag pictures in story order and practice retelling the story.

There are several ready made activities to practice the vocabulary in French with this quizlet. Here are a few in Spanish. Here is a couple of Kahoots for Spanish. Here is a Gimkit in Spanish. Here are some more follow up activities in Spanish.

The objective is for students to retell a simple story. Here are some Popscicle stick puppets to make retelling the story a little more fun.

For assessment here are some comprehension questions in French and Spanish and some drawing activities in French and Spanish.

For another option, plan a trip to the zoo. Your family is going to visit Paris, France over Spring break. Your family loves animals and wants to go to their zoo to see what similar and different animals they have.  Pick the time when you can go (day and time), find out how much it will cost (in dollars and in the Euros). Find the map of the zoo so you have it handy. Also, identify 6 animals you want to see.  

And still we could study animal habitats, talk about animals we are afraid of, discuss animals we eat, which animals make the best pets, which animals in danger of extintion, and there are so many fairy tales bassed on animals. The possibilities from one little 12 word book are endless.