In the Small, Small Pond

Title: In the Small, Small Pond
Author: Denise Fleming
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, 1993
Genre: Picture Book/ Realistic Fiction
Age Range: k-3
Awards: Caldecott Honor

Summary: This is a rhyming story about animals and their actions and sounds. It’s about all the activity that happens at just one pond. At this one pond there are turtles, ducks, fish, sparrows, frogs, muskrats, bugs, tadpoles, etc. It shows things that these animals would be doing in their habitat.

Response: I couldn’t find out what kinds of material were used to create these pictures, but I really wish I knew. These pictures are so bright and lovely. The colors are perfectly mixed so that the dirt looks like dirt and water looks like pond water. Since this is a rhyming story it creates almost a musical quality by building patterns and repetition.This is such a good book for children to learn about habitats, animals, and onomatopoeias. It showed a great variety of creatures that live in a pond environment. It covered animals that live in, on, under, and even near the pond. I can definitely see why it won the Caldecott Honor, and was suggested in the Temple text for books on nature and animals. I loved this book, especially the illustrations.

Teaching idea: Get the children to pick an animal. Then have them write five to seven sounds (onomatopoeias) that their animal could or would make. I would also have the students take the animal that they picked and research their habitat and discuss what other kind of animals live there. This could be a fun little lesson or a take home project for the students to complete. They could each then share making all the other students aware of their animal and habitat.