Melanie Watt is probably most known for her Scaredy Squirrel series and Chester books. Melanie makes her readers fall in love with her characters and their strong voices. Chester and Scaredy Squirrel definitely have distinct personalities. The students laugh aloud when they read the Chester books as they anticipate the next naughty thing the cat will do. They cheer on Scaredy as he overcomes some of his fears one book at a time!
Below are a few ideas that were used with Scaredy Squirrel. On the left is a journal to be used with the stuffed animal of Scaredy Squirrel. Create a Scaredy Squirrel Journal. Write letters as a class from Scaredy Squirrel's perspective. What does he notice when he is in your classroom? What is he afraid of? Send the Scaredy Squirrel journal (and stuffed animal) home with each student. Have the students write a letter from Scaredy Squirrel's perspective from that student's home. What other fears can Scaredy Squirrel learn to overcome?
On the right is some practice with alliteration. Define alliteration with the class and have them practice thinking of a character's name with alliteration in it. Then they can add more words with that same sound to make a silly alliteration sentence. Turn this into a class book for the students to read on their own.
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Melanie Watt uses a lot of sentence fluency throughout her books. Click on this handout to have students practice studying sentence fluency explicitly.
