If Only I Had a Green Nose {Fun Reading Activities and Shamrock Printable}

If Only I Had a Green Nose is a wonderful story for teaching children the importance of being themselves.  These fun reading activities will make the lessons in the story even more meaningful to them.  We love fun book activities like these at Kids Activities Blog!

If Only I Had A Green Nose

One of my favorite things about children books are the lessons to be learned through the characters.  I love discovering and teaching my children about life through the world of children’s literature. Have you heard of If Only I Had a Green Nose  by Max Lucado?  It’s a fabulous story with a wonderful lesson to be discovered.  With St. Patricks day around the corner this is the perfect story since it discusses the color green. Related: Shamrock coloring pages It’s about a little boy named Punchinello, who is struggling with a really hard decision, to be like everyone else in town or to be himself. The towns people decided that by painting their nose green they would feel better about themselves. Does he give in? Read the book to find out. Have fun with the story and make a healthy Shamrock smoothie for them to enjoy while you read or afterwards.

Reading Activities

Green Nose Friends Activity: Enjoy this activity after you read the story.  Grab some pictures of your family or of your son with his friends and put green tissue paper over their noses or green stickers but leave his uncovered to remind him that he doesn’t have to be like everyone else. We did our green noses on the computer in a photo program. What we tell our son,  ” God purposely made you different! Your skills, talents and looks don’t have to be like everyone else to fit in.”

Then you can discuss these questions to get them thinking about the message in the book (adjust questions to their level of understanding) :

• Do your friends look silly?
• Why do you think it’s important to be ourselves?
• What kind of things will your friends say to pressure you into getting a green nose?
• What’s a good way to respond to our friends when they want us to get a “green nose”?

Shamrock Printable

Print out the shamrocks above (right click and copy and paste into your word document to print). Declare that everyone needs to have a green shamrock over their nose. Color the shamrocks in various colors.  Then cut them out and tape them on popsicle sticks. Then have them walk around with the shamrock over their nose greeting each other like they did in the book. Then quickly change it to everyone needs to have yellow shamrocks, then red, then blue….. They will need to hurry and tape the correct color shamrock (the point is that they get tired and can’t keep up.) Then discuss how sometimes it can be fun to be like everyone else? What was hard about trying to fit in for Punchinello? (They kept changing the rules and he couldn’t keep up.) Was it hard for you to keep up? Why?

More Kids Activities

Have you enjoyed reading  If Only I Had a Green Nose  with your children?  If so, please share with us any other reading activities you may have done.  For more book inspired kids activities, please take a look at these ideas:

• Oh The Places You’ll Go {Reading Activities for Tots}
• Easy Shamrock Stamps
• Reading Activities for Goldilocks and the Three Bears
• Check out these shamrock crafts!

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