A Squash and a Squeeze

By | February 4, 2014

This morning my son asked what we were going to do whilst his sister was at nursery. We decided to re-read A Squash and a Squeeze by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Then we thought we would try and re-create the book for ourselves.

A Squash and a Squeeze by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

The book tells the story of a little old lady who thinks that her house is too small. ‘My house is a squash and a squeeze,’ she complains to a wise old man. He advises her to take various animals into her house – first a hen, then a goat, then a pig and finally a cow. The old lady is at her wits’ ends until she follows the old man’s next piece of advice: ‘Take them all out.’ Once she has the house all to herself again, it feels enormous.

squash and a squeeze

My son identified all the characters in A Squash and a Squeeze then I sent him off to find one of each from the toy box:

the wise old man
the little old lady
a hen
a goat
a pig
a cow

We built a house from Lego bricks on our Lego table and added each character according to the story.

squash and a squeeze activity

We soon ran out of room so the furniture had to go. My 3 year old had fun building the house, thinking about the story and squeezing everyone in. Eventually he decided we needed to use the roof so we added a floor and put the table and chairs on the roof and added stairs.

squash and a squeeze activity

He enjoyed re-creating the story and we had to leave our Lego house on the table until daddy got home and saw it!

Linking up with

6 thoughts on “A Squash and a Squeeze

  1. Kirsty

    What a fantastic way to make the story come alive! We love A Squash and a Squeeze and the story has a great moral. We’ll have to try making our own lego house. Thank you for linking up to #kidsbookaweek
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    Reply
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  4. Beth Crawford

    Ma’am- can you please tell me where you purchased the adorable toy characters that go with this book?

    Thanks.

    Reply
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