Connecting to prior knowledge
Before reading
Show your emotion
As an introduction to exploring emotions, read The Terrible Suitcase by Emma Allen, illustrated by Freya Blackwood.
Prompt students to imagine that the following big changes have happened. Ask them to show you how each change would make them feel, using only their face:
- Going to kindergarten for the first time
- Saying goodbye to mum or dad for the first time
- Saying goodbye to a friend who is moving away
- Moving house
Photograph the students’ faces and combine them with word cards to create a word wall. As a class, brainstorm words that describe the feelings expressed in the photos.
Ask students to choose one of the above situations and write a sentence about it. They should use the following sentence starters:
- I would feel … going to kindergarten for the first time because …
- I would feel … saying goodbye to mum or dad for the first time because …
- I would feel … saying goodbye to a friend who is moving away because …
- I would feel … moving house because …
Students can then draw a face to match the emotion in their sentence.
Predict
Display the front cover of Goodbye House, Hello House. Read the title together. Identify the author, Margaret Wild, and the illustrator, Ann James. Ask:
- What do you think the story will be about?
- Are there any clues that tell us where the child is?
Read the blurb on the back of the book. Then ask:
- What kind of things are you now expecting to see inside the book?
- What questions do you have?
- What are you wondering about?
Look at the endpapers at the front and back of the book. Ask:
- Do the endpapers give you any more information about the story?
Packing boxes
Place two boxes at the front of the classroom. Ask students:
What would you pack if you were moving house?
Ask if this item is something they need or something they like. Tell them that it is okay for their item to be either. The purpose of this question is for students to explore the concept of needs (i.e. have to have it to survive) and likes (like to have it because it makes you happy).
Have students draw or write ONE need and ONE like on separate sticky notes (or scraps of paper) and place them on/in the boxes. As they do so, ask:
- Why would you choose to bring that item?
- What would be the most important thing you would bring with you?
You can scribe students’ responses on the back of the notes.
Announce the whole class reading by saying: ‘Let’s see how the girl in the story is feeling about moving and what she is bringing with her.’ Then read Goodbye House, Hello House.
Exploring the text in context of our community, school and ‘me’
After reading
Imagine when…
Invite students to imagine that they are finishing Kindergarten and leaving their current classroom to move to the Year 1 classroom. Ask:
| What parts of the classroom would you want to say goodbye to? |
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| If you could take two items with you, what would you want to take? |
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| How do you think you will feel at the end of Kindergarten? |
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Now ask:
| How do you think you will feel at the start of Year 1? | Repeat the above activity (have students draw their feelings; discuss with someone who felt similarly; create and guess each other’s freeze frames; and discuss with someone who felt differently). |
| What parts of the Year 1 classroom might you want to say hello to? | You could ask permission to visit a Year 1 classroom, or take pictures of the classroom and show them to the class. |
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Imaginative play
Set up two boxes that can be made into model houses. One will represent the house that Emma says goodbye to, and the other the house that Emma says hello to.
Provide dolls or figurines that will take on the role of Emma and one more character. Students can decide who this will be (e.g. Emma’s mum, an imagined older sibling). You can also place some furniture in the houses (toys or crafted items), and perhaps include a toy car (especially if it can fit two dolls or figurines).
Students can use these items to assist in their thinking about the impact of leaving one place and moving to another.
Rich assessment task
Five finger retelling
Give each student a five finger retelling template (PDF, 142KB). This will help them retell the story of Goodbye House, Hello House. They can draw and/or write their answers to the five prompts:
- Who are the characters?
- Where is the story set?
- What happens at the beginning?
- What happens in the middle?
- What happens at the end?
Once they have finished, they can write in the middle of the hand how the story made them feel.
Responding to the text
Text-to-text: home
Ask students:
Is there a difference in the meaning of the words ‘house’ and ‘home’?
Those who think there is a difference can stand at one end of the room, while those who do NOT think there is a difference can stand at the other end of the room.
As a class, brainstorm words that are associated with ‘house’ and ‘home’. For example:
| When I say the word ‘house’, what words do you think of? |
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| When I say the word ‘home’, what words do you think of? |
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Ask if anyone speaks another language and – if so – whether they know some words for ‘house’ and ‘home’ (Google Translate may be useful here). You can also research these words in the language of your local First Nations community.
Select two or three books from the following list and read them to the class:
- Home by Carson Ellis
- A House Is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman, illus. Betty Fraser
- The House That’s Your Home by Sally Lloyd-Jones, illus. Jane Dyer
- This Is Our House by Hyewon Yum
- Two Homes by Claire Masurel, illus. Kady MacDonald Denton
You can find additional Australian texts under More Resources.
Repeat the question:
Is there a difference in the meaning of the words ‘house’ and ‘home’?
Once again, those who think there is a difference can stand at one end of the room, while those who do NOT think there is a difference can stand at the other end of the room. Students who have changed their minds might like to share their reasoning.
As a class, retell the story of Goodbye House, Hello House. You may wish to use the model houses and figurines to visually assist with this (Literature > Exploring the Text in Context of Our Community, School and ‘Me’ > After Reading > Imaginative Play).
Ask students:
At what point in the story was Emma’s old house no longer her home?
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Exploring plot, character, setting and theme
Text-to-self: name the emotion
Select three illustrations from the book and display them prominently so all students can see.
In small groups, students are to discuss how Emma may have felt at various points throughout the story and why. They can draw Emma’s feelings or create faces with playdough.
Ask students to reflect on a time when they felt the same emotion(s) and why. Invite them to share their experiences.
Encourage students to refer to the emotions word wall (Literature > Connecting to Prior Knowledge > Before Reading > Show Your Emotion) as they complete these activities.
Text-to-world: country to city
Show students the Behind the News (BTN) video, ‘City Country Kids’, about two children who each live in the country and the city.
Guide students to set up a table. You can get them to work in pairs OR conduct this as a teacher guided activity if more support is needed. Ask students to draw and write about the changes in Emma’s life in Goodbye House, Hello House. They should think about what life was like for Emma in the country as well as in the city.
Students can use examples from the book and infer other answers from the BTN video. For example:
| Place | Activities | Animals | School |
| Country |
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| City |
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As a class, discuss:
- What changed for Emma?
- What stayed the same for Emma?
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Rich assessment task
Reveal the hidden face
Ask students to select TWO illustrations from the book in which Emma’s face is not visible. Their task is to recreate the drawing with Emma’s face to reveal how they think she might be feeling.
Have students complete the following sentences to accompany each picture. Remind them to refer to the emotions word wall for assistance.
- I think Emma was feeling … because …
- This picture makes me feel …
- I felt this way when …
Examining text structure and organisation
What do you notice?
Take students on a picture walk through Goodbye House, Hello House. Ask them what they notice about the illustrations. Record their comments and any questions.
By the end of the picture walk, it is likely that either yourself OR your students will have commented on the following elements:
- The pictures combine bold black and white linework in the foreground with coloured paint in the background.
- The contrasting colours place the focus on the main character (Emma).
- The background colours create:
- a peaceful mood (blue and green)
- warmth (the fire)
- danger or excitement? (the red gate)
Discuss the illustrations and talk about some of Ann James’ creative decisions, which she describes for the CBCA 2020 Book of the Year Shortlist.
Provide students with a colourful background (or allow them to create their own). This could be a landscape or a recreation of a scene from Goodbye House, Hello House or another book you have read in class (Responding > Text-to-Text: Home).
Provide students with black markers so they can draw a picture of something/someone that belongs in that scene. They can then cut their picture out and attach it to the background.
Beginning to end
Show students the front endpapers in which Emma looks out at the countryside, surrounded by stacks of boxes. Then show them the concluding endpapers in which Emma sits in a tree opposite some buildings. Comment on how the front endpapers set up the story, and the concluding endpapers provide a satisfying resolution. Students may like to look for other books that share this feature; Banjo and Ruby Red by Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood is one example.
Have students work in pairs to decide on a new set of endpapers for Goodbye House, Hello House. What would be the first picture they would want readers to see, and what would be the last? One person will draw the front endpapers, and the other will draw the concluding endpapers.
Examining grammar and vocabulary
Build-a-sentence
Re-read Goodbye House, Hello House with the class.
Focus on the sentences that begin with ‘This is the last/first time I’ll …’ followed by a verb and prepositional phrase. You do NOT need to introduce the concept of a verb and prepositional phrase pattern at this year level; the following activities will help create awareness without the need for technical language.
Ask students to discuss the pattern of sentences:
| Sentence starter | What words are the same? What job do these words do? | The job in common is that they are both sentence starters and both introduce Emma. |
| Verb | What words are different? Do these words have a job in common? | The job in common is that they are action words. |
| Prepositional phrase | What words are different? Do these words have a job in common? | The job in common is that they tell us about a place. |
Print, cut and laminate as many sets of build-a-sentence cards (PDF, 79KB) as needed. This game – inspired by Goodbye House, Hello House – focuses on building simple sentences that include a sentence starter, verb and prepositional phrase.
Players will take it in turns to pick up and put down cards until they can build a sentence that is grammatically correct; makes sense; and includes a sentence starter, action, and information about place. The winner is the first person to build three sentences that meet these criteria.
Exploring tense
NOTE: For the purpose of tracking page numbers, the first page of the story is considered p. 2.
Go to p. 17 and point out that Emma has changed the message on her wall.
Ask students to explain what’s happening here. ‘Lives’ refers to what Emma is doing now, whereas ‘lived’ refers to what already happened (i.e. in the past). Ask students how the sentence would change to talk about what happens next (i.e. in the future) – ‘will live’.
On the board, draw three columns and title them ‘Yesterday (past)’, ‘Today (present)’, and ‘Tomorrow (future)’. Lead the class in a discussion about some of the verbs from the book and/or the card game they just played. Write the word in the appropriate column and ask students to suggest a sentence that matches the correct form. Assist them to fill in the remaining columns for each verb, prompting them to use ‘yesterday’, ‘today’ or ‘tomorrow’ for their oral sentences.
Rich assessment task
Students are to illustrate a scene that depicts them doing something in their own house.
They will need to create a black and white picture of themselves engaging in an activity, as well as a colourful background. They can use paint, crayon or coloured pencil to illustrate their scene.
Students should also write their own sentences about what they are doing, following the example of Goodbye House, Hello House. They should aim to include prepositions and verbs in their sentences.
Role play
While there is no dialogue in Goodbye House, Hello House, students can still imagine what might have been said.
As a class, brainstorm things that Emma and the older characters may have said to one another at key points in the story (e.g. packing up, in the car, arriving at the new house). You can go through the book and identify the scenes where they appear together.
Provide students with some props for playing dress-up. In pairs, they will take on the role of either Emma or an older character (the student in this role can decide who they want to be: Emma’s mum, an imagined older sibling, etc.). Each pair will then act out a scene in one of the rooms of the house. They can choose whether their scene takes place in the old or the new house.
Students will view each other’s work and give feedback:
| Positive feedback = giving a star | ‘I really like the way that …’ |
| Constructive feedback = making a wish | ‘I wish that …’ |
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Body language
Re-read Goodbye House, Hello House. As you do so, encourage students to copy Emma’s body language (you can decide whether to do this seated or standing).
One at a time, show students four pages of your choosing from the book. For each page, ask:
| If you were Emma, how would you feel at this moment in the story? | Record students’ response (video or audio only). |
| If you were Emma, how would you pose at this moment in the story? | Photograph students’ pose. |
Now re-read The Terrible Suitcase by Emma Allen and Freya Blackwood, this time with a focus on body language. Discuss the same questions as a class.
You can review the recorded responses together and put the photos on display in the classroom.
My special place
Ask students to think about the word ‘my’ in relation to Emma’s bedroom:
- Why didn’t Emma use the word ‘my’ when saying goodbye and hello to other parts of the house?
- What do you notice about her body language when she is in her bedroom (old and new)?
Have students write about their own special place at home (not everyone will have their own room, but they can write about another special place inside or outside the home). This could include:
- giving a tour of their special place
- explaining why this place is special to them
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Rich assessment task
Home is where …
Students are to imagine that they are moving house and create dioramas to represent their old and new houses. This can be done individually or in pairs, using shoe boxes to represent a bird’s eye view. Students can recreate their own houses or make up totally new layouts. If working in pairs, they will need to discuss and agree upon the design.
For each diorama, students should:
- label the places they would most like to say goodbye to in their old house
- label the first places they would like to explore in their new house
- show what part of the house is their special place by drawing a heart in that room
Students should also create a small poster explaining each of their choices.
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