The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Title: The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Author & Illustrator: Beatrix Potter

Genre: Fantasy

Awards: None

Age Group: Pre-K–1st

The Tale of Peter Rabbit tells the story of a disobedient little rabbit named Peter who learns the hard lesson of listening to what his mother tells him. Not heeding her warning about avoiding Mr. McGregor's garden (Peter's father was baked into a pie...how did I not remember this part? Yikes! 😟), Peter finds himself trapped inside his fence. It was all fun and games (eating all of Mr. McGregor's plants) until he realizes that he is lost and stuck. To make matters worse, Mr. McGregor has discovered that Peter is in his garden, and he is not too happy about that (cue a couple mad chases through the garden and Peter's clothes being turned into a scarecrow). Luckily, Peter is able to escape and makes it home, where he only gets chamomile tea for supper, while Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail enjoy some blackberries, bread, and milk.

I am undecided as to whether or not I would use this book in the classroom. It does have some good lessons in it, namely, to obey your mother/authorities and that there are consequences to breaking the rules. Still, in a strange way I found this book to be slightly scary?? I didn't really get the whole baking-Peter's-father-into-a-pie thing at the beginning, and then Mr. McGregor using Peter's clothes as a scarecrow seemed kind of odd. Somehow I didn't really remember any of that from when I read this story as a kid, but I didn't particularly love this book as I re-read it. This wasn't particularly a "sweet" story, as many older children's books aren't, but I can see using this book in the classroom for the purpose of talking about classic books that have withstood the test of time. And like I said, it does have a moral take-away for the readers.

I would say that this book is appropriate for Pre-K through first grade. The book itself is tiny, so it would be a good size for little kids to hold (not necessarily good for a read aloud, though). The language is very simple, as is the plot. There are only a few words on each page, and there are lots of illustrations.

Here are a couple of lesson/activity ideas that I found for The Tale of Peter Rabbit:

• Cause & Effect Anchor Chart: Students can practice their cause and effect skills by contrasting some of Peter's actions with the consequences that they earn. For example, Peter ate lots of Mr. McGregor's vegetables (cause), so he got sick (effect). 
• Carrot Number Matching Activity: Combine matching and math skills with language arts! On the "soil" (brown strip of construction paper), there is a line of numbers. On the "carrots" (orange construction paper cut out in the shape of carrots), there are tallies. On the "carrot tops" (green construction paper cut out in the shape of leafy carrot tops), there are dots. The students have to match the tallies on the carrot to the dots on the carrot top and place them on the correct spot in the soil with the corresponding number.