COMPLETE PICTURE BOOK GUIDE: The Little Old Woman Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams. HarperCollins 1986 © 2007 Nancy Polette  

Objectives

The Activities in this literature unit were designed to meet the following objectives:  The student will:

1. Relate incidents from his/her life to characters and events in the story.

2. Demonstrate an understanding of vocabulary by grouping words within a given context.

3. Write from his/her own experience on topics related to the story.

4. Support assertions about text with evidence and compare and contrast themes, characters and ideas.

5. Sequence story events in order and use capitalization and punctuation correctly.

6. Identify letter sounds and ryhming words.

7. Be able to distinguish between sentences and phrases.

8. Apply knowledge of conventional spelling.

9. Demonstrate originality in creative writing.

10. Descriminate among words with opposite meanings.

About the Book

Once upon a time there was a little old lady who was not afraid of anything. She had spent the day gathering herbs and when twilight came she started home through the woods. It was a windy, autumn night and she stopped right in the middle of the path for behind her she heard "CLOMP CLOMP". "I'm not afraid of you," says the little old lady. But the noises keep growing. CLOMP CLOMP, WIGGLE WIGGLE, SHAKE SHAKE, CLAP CLAP....and the little old lady who was not afraid of anything has the scare of her life! But by using her head and coming up with a great idea, the little old lady finds that all turns out just right in the end. 

About the author

Linda Williams is an experienced teacher who knows exactly the kind of book young children like. It needs to be scary but not too scary! Ms. Williams is the director of a child development center and lives in Corvallis, Oregon. In this capacity she understands the needs of young children and remembers what it was like when she was a child and enjoyed scary books. Linda always wanted to write stories and her first story was published in a children's magazine when she was ten-years-old. She says that since that time she has been "hooked" on books and writing and hopes to help the children she works with today become lifelong lovers of books as well. Her newest book is a tale of a mix up on the farm titled Horse in the Pigpen.  Source: Something About the Author. Vol 4 Gale Research Co. 1994. 

Pre-Reading Vocabulary Activities

Directions Cut apart the words in the boxes. Use as many words as you can in one sentence to describe the cover of the book. Add other words as needed. 

lady	woman	forest
pumpkin	cottage	collect
clomp	wiggle	shake
herbs	clap	nod
afraid	boo	scare
windy	sliver	shining
spices	middle	shoes
pants	shirt	gloves

Pre reading sentence starters

DIRECTIONS: Choose one of the sentence starters. Finish the sentence and write one or two more sentences about the topic. 

1. Walking alone in the forest...

2. Things some people are afraid of are...

3. One reason to gather herbs is...

4. It is fun to walk in the woods if...

5. A little old lady who lives all alone might...

6. Finding something in the middle of a road...

7. Reasons to walk faster than usual are...

8. Pumpkins can be used for... 

9. You can make a scarecrow out of...

10. Something really scary would be...