Shared reading response by Prep-1

Prep-1 read the story The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater which is a narrative text about a character named Mr Plumbean. Mr Plumbean and all his neighbours live in a very neat street where all the houses were the same and that was just the way they liked it until…

One day Mr Plumbean finds that a seagull carrying a can of bright orange paint (no one knows why) has flown over his house dropping the paint leaving behind a big orange splot on the roof of his house. Mr Plumbean’s neighbours become angry and want him to fix his house to keep their street neat.

But…Mr Plumbean starts to think about what his dream house might look like and so in time Mr Plumbean decides to paint his house overnight. Not the same as it was before instead, he got blue paint, white paint, red paint, green paint, yellow paint, and purple paint. 

In the morning when the neighbours woke, they saw Mr Plumbean’s house it was like a rainbow, like a jungle, like an explosion, there were stripes, and splots and a lion. The neighbours thought Mr Plumbean had popped his cork! Flipped his wig! And dropped his stopper!

During the night he built a tower on the top, planted palm trees and onions in the front, and got himself an alligator and a hammock. The neighbours became angry and shouted at Mr Plumbean to paint his house.  

One by one the neighbours visit Mr Plumbean and try to make him paint his house just as it was but each time someone visits Mr Plumbean and talk to him, they also start to dream about their dream house. They go home and during the night they also paint their houses until every house in the street reflects the owners’ dreams.  

Following reading The Big Orange Splot the children were then invited draw and paint what their own dream house might look like.

Our dream house designs are outside the Prep-1 camping classroom please come and see our amazing work!