Let's Talk about Books - Toys in Space

Hello!

I'm linking up today with Deanna for Let's Talk about Books, a great linky for discovering amazing books!

This week I'm sharing a book by Mini Grey - Toys in Space.

This is a great story within a story about some toys who are left out in the garden one night. Each toy has a distinctive personality and the little interjections they add throughout really demonstrate this.

( I like the thoughtful green dinosaur!)

While lying out in the garden and looking up and the night sky, they toys get beamed aboard a spaceship and meet Hoctopize.

He is searching for his own lost toy and goes around beaming up toys he finds while searching and searching for his lost Cuddles.

The toys from our story explain to him that this isn't right and help him to return all they toys to their rightful homes.

As the alien returns the toys from our story home, he finds his lost toy which had been there all along (and if you look back to the beginning, you will see it was there in the illustrations all along!).

There are so many things you could do in the classroom with this book. There are lots of writing ideas (writing address labels, describing the characters, writing your own speech bubbles for the characters, creating lost toy posters, postcards, researching and writing about the night sky etc.), reading ideas (finding evidence to describe characters, looking at the idea of a story within a story, author technique, themes etc.) and crafty ideas (making a Hoctopize, parachutes, star gazers, designing and making a new toy etc.)

I haven't actually used this book in the classroom other than reading it to the class but I plan to design a unit of work based on it for next year!

I'm heading back over to Mrs Jump's Class blog to read about all the other great books people are sharing. Don't forget to share yours!