Evaluation

I loved how this story was repetitive to act as scaffold to those who were learning to rhyme in the classroom. The illustrations, although in black and white, are detailed and create a lot of movement between the text and the white background. I also enjoyed observing the movement between pages. As the rhyming patterns become longer and giraffe collects more objects, the illustrations become larger and more complex. All of a sudden, the giraffe begins to give all of his objects away and at the end of the story we are left with the same giraffe that started the poem.  

As a teacher, I may think about a way to create my own classroom poem book that uses this repetitive style. Perhaps the class could write a poem book together or perhaps the teacher could give her students an opportunity to practice writing two rhyming sentences and then creating an illustration. For younger children, you may ask the students which words rhymed on the first page and second page and then create a list of giraffe rhyming words using chart paper.