A walk through the Costa Rican cloud forest provides a wonderfully lush setting for Jan Brett's beloved animal illustrations. When Carlos drops his umbrella to climb a tree for a better view of the animals, they all cram into the banana-leaf umbrella as it floats by--from the little tree frog to the baby tapir to the big jaguar and more. It gets so crowded in the umbrella that there isn't even enough room for a little hummingbird! So over the umbrella tumbles, everyone falls out, and poor Carlos comes back wondering why he didn't see any animals all day.
In the spirit of Jan Brett's The Mitten and The Hat, this cheerful tale of escalation will have readers poring over every illustration for the world of details Jan packs in. With its classic story, exotic jungle setting, and brilliantly colorful menagerie, The Umbrella is sure to take its place among Jan's many family favorites.
I love everything about Jan Brett normally, and this story is no exception. I appreciate the change in setting, as her stories are mostly in Northern-y feeling piney woods. I used this book with kindergarten, as part of our letter of the week series (letter U!). This book was great for the letter, obviously, but was also a perfect fit for them to review story order. My students enjoyed our conversation about the different animals, some that were new to us, and had fun trying to remember the order the animals crawled into the umbrella.
This year (2016-2017), I just used a simple coloring sheet as our activity. For next year, I may use this book with my older students to practice sequencing. I'm looking forward to coming up with some other activities.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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2 April, 2017:
Finished reading
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2 April, 2017:
Reviewed