Too Much Noise

McGovern, A. & Taback, S. (1967). Too much noise. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

ISBN: 0-395-18110-0

This is a story about a man named Peter, who has is disturbed by the noises in his house, the wind and the leaves. He seeks help from the village wise man, who advises him to get a cow. Peter doesn’t understand why, but follows the wise man’s instructions, and is even more disturbed by the cow mooing. The wise man then advises him to get a donkey. Again, Peter does so, and is even more disturbed by the noise of the donkey. This goes on and on, with Peter eventually having 6 different animals in his house. At this point he is very angry. The wise man advises him to let all the animals go. Peter releases the animals, and is pleased to realize that the little noises that originally disturbed him are actually quite soothing. The story ends with Peter going to sleep and having a quiet dream.

I really like this tale, and the shift in perspective that the wise man helps Peter to discover. I like how the tale continues to build, with the addition of animals. This is a fun memory game, and a great opportunity to make animal noises! This is why I think it would be a lot of fun to use with 3-5 year olds. I think they would enjoy remembering the order of the animals, and chiming in on the animal sounds. I also think they would get a kick out of the idea of all these animals being in Peter’s house!

The illustrations in this story, by Sims Taback, are somewhat old fashioned, in hues of orange, brown and blue. I believe he used watercolour and ink. Sims Taback definitely has a unique style. Personally, I’m a bigger fan of the actual story than I am of the illustrations, but as I read the book more, I’m becoming more fond of the pictures.

To build background knowledge & provoke interest for the children, I’d like to go on a ‘sound walk’, where we listen to all the different noises in the environment, and talk about what we’ve heard afterwards. This can also happen within the classroom or centre. We can also play a guessing game where we make different noises with different objects while the children have their eyes closed, and the children can guess what the noises are. I think a trip to Maplewood Farm could work well as either a provocation, or an extension, where we have fun imitating the different animal noises, and drawing the animals.

I would present this book in 4 different ways as follows:

1. A felt story. This felt story is available from 3H Craftworks.
2. A puppet show, with finger puppets. These are available from 3H Craftworks, or IKEA.
3. A ‘clothesline’ story, with pictures of the characters from the book on laminated paper, with each character being added to the line as the story progresses. The children can take turns adding a character and making the noises.
4. An oral story without the picture book, or a story with the picture book. With the picture book, I would stop right after Peter makes his first complaint about too much noise, and ask, “I wonder what Peter is going to do?” After he asks the wise man, I would ask,” I wonder what the wise man is going to tell Peter?” After Peter lets all the animals go, I would ask,” I wonder if the house will still be too noisy for Peter? I wonder if it will be quiet now that the animals are gone?” I don’t think I would chunk the book, because I like how this story builds, and I wouldn’t want to interrupt this natural progression.

Three possible extensions for learning:

1. We can take a trip to Maplewood farm, where we can hear how loud the sounds of the animals are, and imagine how disturbing it would be for Peter to have the animals in his house. We can also record the sounds of the animals to listen back to later. I imagine us reading the story again afterwards, as well as drawing pictures of the animals and our adventure.

2. We can sing the folk song, “I Love My Rooster”. This is a fun song with many animal sounds, and it is cumulative, like Too Much Noise, so we practice memorizing the order of the animals. We can also sing “When Cows Get Up In the Morning” and “Old McDonald”. “Sleeping Bunnies” would also be a fun action song to do, where the children can imitate the movements of the animals, along with the noises they make.

3. We can go on another ‘sound walk’ in a different environment, with different sounds. This could be the beach, or the forest, or even a city street. We can draw the sounds that we hear, imagining what the sounds might look like if we could see them. We can talk about how we feel when we hear these different sounds, and distinguish between nature sounds and man-made sounds (eg. machinery, cars, etc). We can also listen to a variety of pre-recorded sounds, such as bird calls, chainsaw buzzing, siren wailing, waves crashing, frogs etc. We can guess what these sounds are, draw our interpretations, and discuss how we feel in response to the sounds.