The Crocodile Who Didn’t Like Water


Written by Gemma Merino

For ages 3 to 7

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This book is best for:
  • trying new things
  • conjunctions (and, but)
  • negative sentence structures (he didn't like...)
  • action verbs
  • mental verbs

Review

The little crocodile is not like all the other crocodiles - he doesn’t like water at all! He tries very hard to join in with all his brothers and sisters, but the water just isn't for him. Suddenly something strange happens… A surprising twist at the end reveals why the little crocodile felt so different to everyone else.

This is a delightful story with an uplifting message about being true to yourself while still being brave enough to take on new challenges. This book uses a variety of joining words, particularly ‘and’ and ‘but’. It provides plenty of opportunities to model negative sentence structures (e.g. he didn’t like…). It also contains many action verbs (e.g. swim, play) and mental verbs (e.g. like, hate). Through exposure to mental verbs in the story, children will be able to develop their ability to reflect on the character’s internal responses. This will give them a great model to eventually start including character feelings in their stories too!

See the list below for further speech and language targets in this book.


Book Details

Narrative Structure: Abbreviated Episode

Story Plot: Tale Of Fear

Themes:
  • animals - jungle / wild, reptiles
  • individuality
  • trying new things

Speech and Language Targets

Speech Sounds:
  • /r/ blends - crocodile, brothers, strange, grew, dragon
Grammar:
  • conjunctions (and, but, so, because)
  • copula (was)
  • negatives (didn’t, couldn’t)
  • action verbs (play, swim, climb, jump, fly)
  • mental verbs (like, decide, hate, knew); adverbials of time (today, afternoon)
Semantics:
  • explaining means to a goal
  • identifying obstacles to an action
Concepts:
  • temporal (today, afternoon)
Social-Emotional:
  • individuality
  • trying new things
Narrative:
  • traditional opening
  • character description
  • problem
  • feelings
  • repetition for emphasis
Book Info

Published by Macmillan Children's Books in 2013 (ISBN: 9780735841635)

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