A Halloween Story Walk – Frogs Galore!

This year’s Halloween Story Walk features the picture book Tuesday by David Wiesner. I love this story because it is a true picture book: out of 29 pages, there are only four pages with words. You have to really look at the illustrations to understand what is going on.

Tuesday  is about a magical Tuesday evening where lily pads act like flying carpets, carrying a happy chorus of frogs into town. It is a simple story with lots of humor.

I get a kick out of watching some adults try to figure out what is happening with the flying frogs. One guy, who seemed to have lost touch with his imagination, asked “What’s the moral of the story?”

Most people love it, especially parents who take the time to read the story with their children. It’s fun to hear the different interpretations!

I also added a sound effect using a custom easy button. I got the recording from an amazing chorus of frogs we heard at Middleton Place in Charleston, South Carolina.

Making the story walk

As I detailed in my first Halloween Story Walk blog, I made my story by cutting pages out of paperback versions of the book, numbering and laminating each page, then stapling each to wooden stakes (bought from Home Depot).

I then recreated a scene from the book using an old lady mask, styrofoam head, PVC pipe for her frame, pillows for stuffing, styrofoam noodle for the leg shapes, and clothes from Good Will.

I ordered plush frogs from Amazon, green foam to make the lily pads, and sewed the lily pads onto the bottom of the frogs. Then I sprayed all with scotch guard to (hopefully) protect them from the rain. I used 30 lb fishing wire to hang up the frogs so they look like they are flying.

We didn’t have anything to hang them from – shout out to my husband for doing ALL the manual labor! – so we rigged up something using iron plant posts and decorative bicycle wheels. My husband also made a table to hold the old TV.

Tips

• If you design a story walk, make sure you number each page that you cut out from the books.That will save time when you place the story outside.
• Place the story at kid level – don’t make it too high.
• Make sure it is well lit at night
• I added a “The End” sign so people can figure out where to start their story walk. People naturally want to read from left to right, but my story reads from right to left. It fits our yard best that way.

Please let me know in the comments if this inspires you to create your own story walk. They can be done any time of year!

Happy Halloween!