One Grain of Rice

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This is a tale set in India of a clever girl and a greedy raja. The girl tricks the raja into giving her one grain of rice as a reward for her honesty, and then doubling the reward each day for a month. The raja learns by the end of the month that doubling adds up to a great amount of rice! Enough to feed her starving village. The tale has a good moral; it poses the relationship of honesty and greediness. The artwork is inspired by Indian art and is absolutely gorgeous. A wonderful tale.

Language concepts to work on with this tale:
For younger children:
1. This is a great book to focus on the concept of “more”. Explore whether each day provided “more” rice than the day before. Make up a repeating line that the child can say at the end of every page such as “and then she got more…”
2. Describe the pictures and the animals. Describe their size, colors, texture, etc.

For older children:
Vocabulary:
1. foresight
2. greed
3. honesty
4. double

For children who are working on the /r/ sounds: Concentrate on the words “Rani”, “rice”, and “raja”. Overemphasize the /r/ in each word. If the child is able, have the child say that word every time it comes up in the book.