This Month’s Book: A Big Guy Took My Ball
Our Cover to Cover Book of the Month for February is A Big Guy Took My Ball! by Mo Willems. Someone took Piggie’s ball and he is BIG! What should Piggie do? This book provides a great opportunity to discuss with your child positive ways to resolve conflict. Get creative! Explore the many possibilities to positively resolving conflict!
Getting Piggie’s ball back from the “Big Guy” shouldn’t be a problem for such a BIG elephant like Gerald. But things aren’t always what they seem. Talk with your child about the assumptions made in this book and how they led to a BIG misunderstanding. How did Piggie and Gerald resolve the conflict?
Promote phonological awareness by singing Willoughby Wallaby Woo with your child. This silly elephant song will definitely get your little one recognizing the diverse sounds of language. Find the lyrics here.
Piggie turns to his friend for help. And Gerald, being a good friend, wants to stand up for Piggie. While reading this book, focus on the illustrations and try and understand with your child how each character is feeling. “How do you think Gerald feels when he first decides to help his friend Piggie?”
This book reinforces comparative size concept. Use junk mail or left over paper and crumple them to create balls of different sizes. While playing ball with your child discuss the different sizes. “Can you throw me the biggest ball?”
Join the Conversation!
Share your experience with A Big Guy Took My Ball! and be entered into a raffle to win next month’s C2C Book Club title! For example, you could:
- Tell us about your child’s favorite part of the story.
- Send a video of you sharing the book together.
- Send a picture of you and your child playing ball together.
Share your photos and videos with us on Twitter and Instagram and be sure to tag Make Way for Books. For example:
@mwfbaz Look at the different size balls we made with our left over grocery adds! #storytime
Or email us your photo or video at info@makewayforbooks.org.
Be creative! We can’t wait to see what you loved about A Big Guy Took My Ball!