Wordless Picture Books

Fleischman. P & Hawkes.K (2004) Sidewalk Circus. Cambridge.MA. Candlewick press

ISBN 0-7636-1107-7

This story is about a circus that is suposed to be coming to town. And in the begining a young girl is waiting  and while she is waiting there is a circus going on right before her eyes with regular everyday people as the circus performers.At the end of the story when the young girls circus is finished, she leaves and is replaced by a boy, who begins to see a circus of his own.
I think this story is good for 3-5 year old children because the whole story is about imagination and creativity, which young children have an abundence of both. The way the illustrator creates wonder is very well planned and will keep the children interested throughout the story.

Provocations
1. one provocation that can be done with this book is the teacher can take photcopies of the shadows and place them throughout the room, and allow the children to explore the shadows to gain a better understanding.
2. The teacher can place admit one tickets around the room for the children to find and keep and when the time comes for the story the teacher can collect them and admit them into the circus.

Three ways to present the story.
1. Read the stroy and allow wonder on each page by asking them what they see or if they have ever been to a circus and what they enjoyed about it.
2.Make a magnetic board with people doing circus acts, like the local people in the book.
3. Have the children act out the story and become the circus performers themselves.

Three possible extensions
1. Taking the children on a field trrip to a circus to see if the book is similar to the actuall thing or if it is differnt then the book.Or we can have a circus of our own and let the children run their circus.
2.Since the book uses alot of shadows a good extension would be to explore shadows, by having the children trace each others shadows and even to create shadow creatures with their hands on the wall.
3. Another possible extension that could be done is  take the children on a walk to see if there are any circus performers on our streets or if its just in the book. The children would then therefore be able to make connections from the book and what they see.