David McPhail Book Activities for Children

This month’s Virtual Book Club for Kids author, David McPhail, was new to us so I am super excited to see all of the fun book activities for children featuring his work that everyone is linking up.  We checked out many of his books from the library, but the one we had the most fun with was Piggy’s Pancake Parlor (Action Packs).

Piggy’s Pancake Parlor is the story of a little pig who is taken in by a farmer family.  Mrs. Farmer teaches him how to make a pancake recipe with a special secret ingredient.  Piggy befriends Fox and they open a successful pancake parlor together in town.

The kids loved the idea of having a pancake parlor and decided to make their own.  They started talking about what they were going to do even before we had finished the book (it’s written in a chapter book style so we didn’t read it all in one sitting.)

They even designed costumes for their characters.  They created a pig nose for Piggy like we did during our Letter P Play Date and cut out cardboard ears for Fox and taped them onto a headband.  The customer carried a purse/wallet with play money in it to pay for the pancakes.

Not only was their pretend pancake parlor fun, it was also packed full of early literacy practice!

• They used writing and prewriting skills while creating the sign, writing (and pretending to write) the orders, and filling out the bill.
• They recalled and sequenced story events while planning and acting out the book.
• They identified the main characters and were able to describe each the characteristics of each.
• They made text to self connections and used their background knowledge of really going out to eat pancakes to help remember and understand what happened in the story.

It’s amazing how much learning takes place while kids are playing!

Here are all of the bloggers who are participating in the Virtual Book Club for Kids this year!  Be sure to visit to see all of the fun they have had!