AND THE DISH RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON

By Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel
Publisher: Harcourt, Inc.
ISBN 0-15-202298-8

FROM THE FLAP: Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed to see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Every night the rhyme gets read. Every night Dish and Spoon run away. And every night they return, until tonight!

Where can Dish and Spoon be? The rhyme can’t go on without them, so Cat, Cow, and Dog set out to search for their missing friends. But where to start? Should they go north? East? Northeast? They’ll just have to read Fork’s map, ask directions, and try not to get lost in Little Boy Blue’s haystack or under Miss Muffet’s Tuffet or in the Big Bad Wolf’s Kitchen…

“Fee, Fi, Fo…”

Oh no. Could that be the giant?

JUMPING OVER THE MOON (Kinesthetic)

Cut out a large moon from yellow bulletin board, tape it to the rug, and have students jump over it one-by-one. Have students recite And the Dish ran away with the Spoon rhyme saying each child’s name instead of Cow when he or she jumps over the moon. Take a picture of each child jumping over the moon for the Who Jumped Over the Moon? activity below.

LOST AND FOUND (Intrapersonal and Visual/Spatial)

Cat is very upset when he realizes Dish and Spoon are gone and is very relieved when he finds them. Draw a picture of how you felt when you lost something and how you felt when you found it. Write a sentence describing your picture.

PAPER PLATE PUZZLES (Visual/Spatial)

Give each student a paper plate(Dish) that has been cut up into six pieces. Have them repair Dish. Then, around the edge of the paper plate, have them use marker and create a striped border in an A, B, A pattern.

WHO JUMPED OVER THE MOON? (Verbal/Linguistic)

Using the pictures from Jumping over the Moon, create a class book. Each page will feature one picture of a student jumping over the moon, and the rhyme minus the word cow. Put a blank line where the word cow would go and have the pictured student write in his or her name. Take turns sending the book home in a bag with each child.

WHO RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON? (Interpersonal)

Instead of playing Doggy, Doggy Where’s your Bone, play Who Ran Away with the Spoon. Change the last line of And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon to And someone ran away with the spoon. Have one student go into the hallway while one student hides the spoon. Have the class chant the rhyme when they’re ready to have the student come guess who ran away with the spoon.

Book Buddies:

-Little Miss Muffet Counts to Ten by Emma Chichester Clark
-Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose by Leo and Diane Dillon
-The Neighborhood Mother Goose by Nina Crews
-You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very short Mother Goose Tales to Read Together by Mary Ann Hoberman