Room on the Broom Book-inspired Activities {Plus Review & Giveaway}

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A few weeks ago we received a copy of Room on the Broom
by Julia Donaldson and a copy of the Room on the Broom DVD. 

We love The Gruffalo (also by Julia Donaldson), so we were excited to check out this new-to-us book by such a beloved author! 

Room on the Broom is a the #1 best-selling children's picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. It tells the story of a friendly witch who is traveling on her broomstick and drops a few things. She meets three animals who help her find her missing items and then help save her when she is about to be eaten by a scary dragon. The book is filled with darling pictures and predictable rhymes. My kids love reading it again and again.

After we read Room on the Broom a few times, we decided to create a simple reading movement activity to help us practice reading some of the words in the book while also working on listening comprehension.

Supplies:

• painters tape
• printable of Room on the Broom characters
• scissors
• colored cardstock
• copy of Room on the Broom
• sharpie

Room on the Broom Listening Activity

Prep ahead: Cut around each character on the printable. Cut cardstock into 4 x 5.5 strips. Tape a character onto each strip. Write the name of the character on the strip. Tape these character cards all over your floor using painters tape.

Start the activity by reading the story aloud to your kids.

As they hear the name of a character, encourage them to run and stand on that character's card. They can also act out what each character does as they race to the correct character card (the dog bounds, the bird flaps, the frog leaps, etc).

Acting out segments of the story and listening for specific characters helps check to see what the kids are getting out of the book and how much they are listening. Watching them run around was also really fun for me to watch. 🙂 It was cute to see both my kiddos work together.

After playing our movement game for a bit we made super simple paper towel roll witch brooms to ride.

Paper Towel Witch Broom

Supplies:

• paper towel roll
• tape
• marker
• scissors
• yellow cardstock

To make this super simple witch broom all we did was cut a segment of cardstock a tape it around the bottom of the paper towel tube so that it hung a few inches past the end. Then we used scissors to snip the ends to make it look fringed like a broom would look. Lastly, we added some extra details with the sharpie.

My daughter flew around and around the room on the broom while my 11 month old tried to catch her and steal the broom.

Our last Room on the Broom inspired activity was to have a family ride on our own broom around the house! 

We grabbed our real broom from the closet and all jumped on and rode it around the house. We each took turns riding separately too. When we all rode together there were lots of giggles.

After moving and reading we went and watched the Room on the Broom DVD. It is produced by Magic Light Pictures (the same company that produced The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child).

The animated film is short- only 26 minutes... and also shares about 32 extra minutes with special features. The length was perfect for my 3-year-old daughter.

We loved the images in the DVD and how the book came to life for us on screen! My daughter was quite scared of the dragon (so needed me to cuddle with her when he showed up), but she was loved all of the other characters and wanted to watch this movie again and again. In fact, on a recent long road trip, the Room on the Broom DVD was a movie that the kids really enjoyed watching and specially requested that we bring it! 

I also loved the language and rhyming in the book and movie, so I didn't mind listening to it several times on our road trip.

If you love Room on the Broom you can find more activities over on the NCircle Room on the Broom page.

Have you read Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson?

Have you watched the Room on the Broom film yet?

Today I am excited to give one Toddler Approved reader the opportunity to win both a copy of the Room on the Broom picture book and the Room on the Broom DVD.

Room on the Broom Giveaway

Giveaway Entry Requirements:

• Make sure to fill in the rafflecopter giveaway entry below and complete the mandatory email entry.
• You can get up to six entries by completing all six tasks mentioned in the rafflecopter form below.

Entry Guidelines:

• This giveaway is open for entry from Sunday, September 22nd to Sunday, September 29th at 12:00am (PST)
• The one random entry will be drawn on Sunday, September 29th. I will notify the winner via email.
• The winner will need to reply to me within 72 hours of my email. If there is no response, a new winner will be drawn.
• See our Official Giveaway Rules for complete guidelines. US Residents only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: This review and giveaway is sponsored by NCircle Entertainment. I was sent a free copy of both the book and DVD to review and share. All opinions in this post are mine!