We’re so pleased to introduce our newest Read-Aloud Poster for The Wild Robot, written by Peter Brown. Published in 2016, this middle-grade favorite has broad appeal and is our vote for “most likely to draw in reluctant readers.” This is the story of how Roz, a robot stranded on an island, learns how to survive and make friends. We think it’s perfect for ages 5 and up, but you’re the best judge of your kiddos!

This poster has some of the familiar features that families have told us they love in our Read-Aloud Posters, as well as some new activities that we’ve designed to highlight some our favorite parts of the book. As always, the full details are in the Activity Guide that comes with the poster. Please recognize that these are just opportunities - you don’t need to do them all! Feel free to go at your own pace, leave things out if you need to do less, and use some of our extension activity ideas if you’d like to explore in more depth.

And now, an overview of what you can look forward to on our Read-Aloud Poster for The Wild Robot:

Reader Signatures and Ratings: 

We start and end every poster with our Reader Signature block. Start here by having everyone sign their name (yes, you too!) as a co-book reader and poster-completer; come back at the end to give your star rating and talk about what you liked (and didn’t like) about the book. Book evaluation discussions are great times to give evidence to support your opinions, as well as practice being kind and respectful to other readers whose opinions might differ from yours. Bonus for grown-ups: listen for clues to help you be an even better book-matchmaker for your kids! 

Discussion questions:

One of the best things about reading together is being able to talk about the book. If you’ve completed some of our other Read-Aloud Posters, you might notice that the discussion questions aren’t on sticky notes this time! Instead, we placed them around the poster next to an activity that will help you think about the question. If you have your own sticky notes and you’ve enjoyed using them for questions in the past, feel free to keep doing that. Otherwise, you can just respond to each question as you think of it in connection with the book.

Story Board: 

The center of the poster is a picture that shows the setting of the story. As you listen, you’ll hear details to add. We’ve indicated some possibilities with small acorns on different parts of the story board, but there are many more details you can choose to add if you enjoy drawing details.

Robot factory:
One fun addition to our poster for The Wild Robot isn’t actually ON the poster! We’re including some materials to help you make a model of Roz that you can use to show how she changes physically over the course of the book. You can move the model around the story board if you’d like, but she may be a little big for some places on the story board.

Animal Movement Words: 

This book has two very specific types of words that we think you’ll enjoy noticing as you listen. The first is animal movement words. The author does a great job of using strong action verbs to describe how different animals move, and we love how they help the reader picture the action. When you hear a really great movement word, write it down in one of the trees on the poster so you don’t forget it!

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Sounds of the Island: 

One special kind of word that you’ll find in The Wild Robot is an onomatopoeia. You’ll find lots of these special sound words that will help you to imagine the many sounds on the island. When you come across one, write it down in a speech bubble.

Survival School: 

Roz learns some important lessons about survival from the animals she meets on the island. Use this section of the poster to tell about some of her teachers! 

Robot-Human Venn diagram:

Peter Brown gives many examples of ways that Roz is similar to and different from the animals on the island. Is Roz more like a human? Use the Venn diagram to show ways that you and Roz are the same and different. Do you think that Roz is a typical robot?

Story Timeline:

Across the bottom of the poster is a timeline you can use to show what happens on the island in each season of the year. You can choose to use words, pictures or a combination of both. 

There’s a lot to do in this poster! As always, feel free to make it your own and do those activities that are most appealing to you! (We don’t give points for completeness. :)) 

Our hope is that the poster activities help you and your family more fully appreciate this beloved story. And, we always love to hear from you. What types of activities would you like to see more of? What do you hope we include on every poster? Shoot us an e-mail and let us know!