As a young veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1940s, James Herriot worked in conditions that sharply contrasted with the sterile setting of veterinary school. In this collection of semi-autobiographical vignettes, Herriot (pen name of Alfred Wight) shows us the joy and misery of a rural vet’s life. But his challenging setting, clients, boss, and patients all help him learn who he is—and make for a hilarious, heartwarming story.
Read reviews/buy the book here. Whether your kids are up for this book (which was written for adults) or a more “kid-friendly” collection of Herriot’s stories, they’ll appreciate his humor, work ethic, and compassion, as well as the setting, people, and animals of Yorkshire. We make a small commission on anything you buy via our Amazon affiliate links throughout this page.
About the author
Teaching Options
This long webpage shares all the fun we had in our live workshops on All Creatures Great and Small. We hope it inspires you! If you'd like to teach this book yourself, you might want to buy the printables you'll see throughout. On the other hand, if you'd like US to teach your kids, check out our video workshop!
There are many ideas in this Hands-on Fun section—don't feel you have to do them all! If you want to focus on a particular teaching point, our Takeaway Topics section can help you narrow down the activity options. And you can enhance discussions during any activity with audiovisual aids from Learning Links or story objects from Prop Ideas.
In our workshops, we do all the activities on this page, in order of the story's narrative arc. You might find our narrative arc worksheet helpful for sequencing your activities, teaching the important concept of the arc, and helping kids learn how James Herriot herded All Creatures Great and Small into his pen. :)
Setting's always important in a story, but especially in books where it so clearly makes the characters and drives the plot. James Herriot does a beautiful job describing the beauty of the Yorkshire Dales, which are built on a chalk foundation, like the White Cliffs of Dover. So what more appropriate way to honor his landscape than by "chalking it up" to a beauty-full landscape of the Dales? We even brought the ever-present Yorkshire rain into the (literal) picture.
INSPIRATION
As I drove west across the Plain of York I began to catch glimpses over the hedge tops and between the trees of the long spine of the Pennines lifting into the morning sky; they were pale violet at this distance and still hazy in the early sunshine but they beckoned to me. And later, when the little car pulled harder against the rising ground and the trees became fewer and the hedges gave way to the clean limestone walls I had the feeling I always had of the world opening out, of shackles falling away. And there, at last, was Darrowby sleeping under the familiar bulk of Herne Fell and beyond, the great green folds of the Dales. —Ch. 35
SETUP
(Begin by reading the Inspiration aloud; point out that it's not taken from the Exposition, but enhances our understanding of the setting we first identify in Chapter 1.)
Can't you just see those hazy, violet mountains in the distance, and the morning sun on the green pastures? We're going to recreate this view in chalk, because that's what's underneath Yorkshire!
The chalk of Yorkshire is about 400 meters thick, and it’s a pure calcite limestone, which means it’s made mostly of dead algae called coccoliths, and also of fossils and broken shells. Most of us don’t realize that chalk is made of once-living creatures! And since this book is about ALL creatures, great and SMALL, it seems all the more appropriate to color its setting in chalk.
But we’re using colorful chalk, because as Dr.Herriot observes so many times, up top, Yorkshire's quite a colorful place. Even its characters are colorful, in a different way, aren’t they!
(Here's a video that walks kids through the steps in real time . . . or you can use the written directions below it.)
WRITTEN DIRECTIONS
1. First, use the sides of your chalk to smear sunrise colors across the top of your art board, in layers of orange, red, yellow, maybe a hint of purple. Do this however you like and don’t try to make it perfect; this isn’t your final art; it’s just the foundation, like the chalk of the Dales. We’re going to mess it up later, to make it even more beautiful.
2. Now let’s get those hazy pale violet hills in there. Slightly overlap your sunrise with swaths of purple and blue, the general shape of distant hills. Stop about halfway down the board, to leave room for pastures.
Again, use the sides of your chalk, and don’t worry about it being messy or imperfect. That’s the way nature is, and it’s just right.
3. Ready to plant some grass? Okay, next smear light and darker greens all the way from the hills to the bottom of the board, overlapping those hills a little bit.
4. Finally, at the very bottom, smear a smudge of brown stone fence, not a straight line, because those stones make the fence kind of bumpy. Color that in pretty thickly. Use your imagination, but be sure to include a stone fence, or it won’t look like the Dales.
Your chalk foundation might look something like the picture on this page, but it might look very different, and that’s just great!
5. All done? Okay, now dip your finger in water (wasn’t James always out in the rain?) and lightly smear the sky, blending the line where it meets the hills. Repeat with the mountains, pastures, and fence.
Depending on how much water you add and how you move your finger, you’ll get more intense color, blurred boundaries, or less color. You can add more chalk, or add the gauze to blot up more moisture.
Play with it--and don’t panic if it smears or you lose too much color. Everything is fixable with water and gauze, and there’s no such thing as ugly in the Yorkshire Dales!
Later, if you want more definition and detail, you can use a marker to outline rocks in the wall, and tear up bits of cotton and turn them into sheep, if you want—just stick them on the grass, adding legs and faces with your marker. Don’t overdo it; as you can see below, they just look like tiny bits of wool from a distance:
Or shred them across the fields for fog, which the author compared to "a rippling layer of cotton wool,” or put them in the sky for clouds. Now you’ve got an artistic view of the Dales, like James’ view in his book, and it’s made with chalk and "rain" like the Dales, and it's full of color like the characters, and it’s fixed up and made better with veterinary supplies just like Dr. Herriot’s.
BookBites is the part of our literary experience when we get to “taste the story.” We choose a food right out of the book, and it has to meet at least one criterion:
it’s important to a plot point
it has thematic significance
it’s unfamiliar for reasons of culture, era, or location
Siegfried's brother Tristan’s one of those characters, not just in the book, but in real life, who makes you roll your eyes and shudder in horror but also makes you laugh and hope he lands on his feet. This endearing young man also gives us our one shot at a decent BookBites experience, by having a decent breakfast. Because almost every other food and drink in this story is . . . not for children! and not for vegetarians! and not for the faint of heart!
INSPIRATION
Tristan's chair was nearest the fire and he was enjoying his breakfast as he enjoyed everything, slapping the butter happily on to his toast and whistling as he applied the marmalade. His Daily Mirror was balanced against the coffee pot. You could almost see the waves of comfort and contentment coming from him. —Ch. 15
SETUP
We’re going to enjoy Tristan’s breakfast, known to Britains as "brekkers." It's our own favorite breakfast of coffee (a decaf version of Nescafé, which was new in 1938), toast, and marmalade, all wrapped up in his favorite newspaper, The Daily Mirror: Pretend you're sitting in the very dining room where James, Siegfried, and Tristan ate, below. Be sure to happily slap some butter on the toast, and whistle as you add Mrs. Hall's marmalade, made especially for the tenants of Skeldale House. (Her jam label and the newspaper are included in our printables set.) Photo by permission of WorldofJamesHerriot.com
We love collage projects because they’re such a creative, colorful way to explore the story, and no two are ever the same. Looking for images is like a treasure hunt — you never know what you’ll find!
We also love watching how the discovery process helps kids understand symbolism, and cultivates an intuitive awareness of deeper meanings. We tell them “if a picture or word leaps out at you, there’s a connection to it in the story — you just have to follow your train of thought to find it.”
SUPPLIES
a variety of old magazines featuring plenty of animals, countrysides and English home-type images of all kinds – travel magazines and brochures tend to have relatively few embarrassing ads and inappropriate articles! Or you may want to tear out relevant images ahead of time.
pocket folders (if you’re using them for worksheets and notes)
DIRECTIONS
Tell the kids to look for things that remind them of any aspect of the book; images that represent the setting, mood, character/s, and any symbols you’ve discussed. Have them keep an eye out for images representing Dr. Herriot’s decision not to be a “people doctor,” which would have meant living in comfort and making more money. His choice (and the reasons behind it) was a major theme of this beautiful book. Tell the kids to watch out for key words as well, including those in the title.
Large pictures should be trimmed and glued down first, so that as much of the background paper is covered as possible.
Layer and glue smaller images next, neatly trimmed.
Cover up any cracks or holes with more images and words.
Be sure to spell out the title using collections of letters and words, “ransom note” style.
As a final step, cover the entire masterpiece with a thin layer of Mod Podge – this creates a nice glossy sheen and fastens down flyaway edges and corners.
While the kids hunt, snip and glue, play some 1940s British dance music in the background, or, in contrast, play this video of 30 different breeds of farm animals making their own special sounds.
In this prompt-based acting activity, kids take on the role of a person or creature from the story who's actively looking for another, or is waiting to be found. For instance:
You’re a beautiful pedigreed short-horned bull who’s been out in the sun too long. You’ve got sunstroke, so you stand with your mouth open, gasping for air. Don’t worry — Farmer Phin Calvert is looking for you right now, and will soon call that bright new vet to help you out!
OR
You are a short-statured, ragged-looking but prosperous old farmer who is very cheerful and likes to stand with his hands tucked into his suspenders. You are almost always smiling and humming (“hi-te-tiddly rum te tum”). Today you are going out to the pasture to check on your prize-winning bull, who is having a very hard time breathing – you don’t know why.
James Herriot’s stories are full of believable, interesting, unique characters. He adds just the right amount of colorful detail to make each personality, whether human or beast, come alive on the page. This activity highlights those details, and lets kids try out their acting chops, which we’ve found they’re always itching to do.
The more dramatic their impersonations, the more fun they’ll all have, so encourage them to throw their polite Yorkshire reticence to the wind and HAM it up!
DIRECTIONS
Divide the kids into two groups, Finders and Findees.
Give everyone in the Findee group a prompt. Ask them to read it silently and think about how they’ll act out that character.
When all are ready, have the first Finder draw a prompt and read it out loud. When you give the word, the Finder becomes that character, and all the Findees will begin to act according to their prompts.
The Finder moves among the Findees, staying in character, observing and asking questions until his or her specific Findee is found.
Repeat until all Finders and Findees have been reunited!
BookBites is the part of our literary experience when we get to “taste the story.” We choose a food right out of the book, and it has to meet at least one criterion:
it’s important to a plot point
it has thematic significance
it’s unfamiliar for reasons of culture, era, or location
Mrs. Bellerby served a large, round Yorkshire pudding to each of them and poured a pool of gravy into it from a quart-size enamel jug . . . the delicious scent that rose from the gravy as it ran over the golden slabs was a sweet torture. —Ch. 10
Yorkshire pudding is served not only in this book but throughout English literature — but readers (at least American readers) don’t imagine it to be what it is. That’s why we served it to our kids, so they could see, smell, and taste it themselves. (Here’s one easy recipe, and here's an easy mix.) And of course, we also served a "cuppa" of true Yorkshire tea.
What’s it like to be awakened from a sound, cozy sleep to attend to the various ailments of farm animals out in the Yorkshire Dales? Get into Dr. Herriot’s Wellies —figuratively AND literally —to find out! We guarantee this relay race will result in much more hilarity than any late night emergency call of Dr. Herriot’s.
INSPIRATION
Our inspiration for this activity is all of Chapter 19, in which Dr. Herriot experiences the most luxurious and the most . . . rustic sides of life all in one night, as he goes from Tricki Woo's fancy party to help Mr. Atkinson's sow give birth. Here's where the contrast between what might have been and what IS are sharpest!
SUPPLIES
Invitation to Tricki Woo's birthday party at Mrs. Pumphrey's (in our printables) - it's extra fun for the kids to each have their own, but one per team will do
Oversized “Wellingtons” (rain boots, etc. – one pair per team)
Chairs (one per team)
A bucket of cold water (the icier the better)
Greasy lotion—the greasier the better, like Vaseline (one tube/tub per team).
Symptom tags for each animal (in our printables)– tie/tape them to the animal’s tail/leg/neck
SETUP
Choose the old-fashioned ring on your cell phone, as a race-starting sound.
Set up these three relay stations in order, with as much distance in between as you like, depending on your space.
Station 1: Wellingtons (one pair of boots for each team) Station 2: Austin (one chair for each team, with a printout of the journey sounds) Station 3: Farm (one bucket of ice cold water near a table supplied with greasy “sanitizing” lotion and individually wrapped bandages.
You’ll stand at the farm table to hand each “vet” their ailing animal once they’ve covered their hands with lotion.
Divide the kids into two teams and line up each team at Station 1.
Hand out the fancy invitations to Tricki Woo's party, play some British dance music of the 1930s, and enthusiastically say something like this:
Welcome, welcome Uncle Herriot, to a fine evening of fine dining and dancing with beautiful women, enjoying the very best of everything from champagne and caviar to your own luxurious towel and expensive lathery brand new slab of soap!
Ahhhhh…. wasn’t that an incredible evening? Now you’ll go home tired and happy and collapse into bed at Skeldale House with “snatches of music still tinkling about” in your head.
YAWWWWNNNN!!!! (Get all the kids to yawn long and loudly.)
But wait . . . what's that horrible jangly sound down the hall? OH Noooooooo . . . it's an EMERGENCY CALL!
Tell the kids, with gusto and urgency and ideally a British accent, that their job is to pull on their boots, hop in the Austin wash up, help a creature (great or small), and make it from bed to barn and back again.
(They'll be delighted or perhaps disappointed to hear that they won't be helping a sow give birth. They'll discover the creature and its ailment when they arrive.)
Once you've given the first vets their directions at each station, the rest of them will know what to do. Just keep the energy high by having teammates yell lots of encouragement as they go!
Station 1
Wellies on!
Hear that old fashioned ring? (choose that ring on your cell phone) Sounds like a real emergency! Gotta shove on your Wellies and clomp to the garage as fast as possible! (Kids from each team rush to shove on a pair of oversized farm boots, then clomp to Station 2.)
Station 2
On the way!
Now hop in your tiny unreliable car (chair) and drive as fast as you can! Make all these noises to prove you're really getting somewhere! (from the printed list of “journey sounds.”)
Once you've made all the noises, leap from your car and head for the barn!
Station 3, Step 1
Wash up!
Plunge your hands into that bucket of cold water and find that little bit of horrible soap the farmer gave you, that’s hard as a rock and won’t lather at all. Rub it between your hands, then dry them off on this manure-encrusted scrap of burlap! No no of course not really manure, just pretend!
Station 3, Step 2
Treat the critter!
Now sanitize your hands with LOTS of the lotion—the more the better!
NOW you're ready to see your patient! Here you go! (Hand the vet a tiny stuffed animal with a symptom tag tied to its tail or ear). Read what's wrong, then open this bandage and put it where it hurts! Band-aids cure EVERYTHING, you know, so there’s no need to stick your hand into icky or dangerous places, or cut something open. Bandaids are MAGIC! Hurry up! It's an emergency! (Their efforts to open a bandage with cold, greasy, hurried fingers is where the most fun comes in!)
Back to bed!
After treating their patients, team members head back to bed (the start) with their stuff animal, and tag the next teammate in line.
The first team to complete the entire rigamarole will win. Or you can call every vet a winner, and let them keep their creatures as prizes.
To wrap up this activity, talk about the meaning of “work ethic” and how the author’s commitment to his calling was most evident when he got those middle-of-the-night summons.
In fact, it's at the end of this scene that Dr. Herriot wholeheartedly embraces his messy, rural, unpredictable life, and puts behind him the thought of a cleaner, warmer, more luxurious way of life.
Throughout our workshops, we weave in worksheets that help kids process ideas in written form. For All Creatures Great and Small, the kids used our six worksheets to:
follow the narrative arc
write some Yorkshire dialect
learn some equine anatomy
pinpoint the setting of the Dales
grasp a theme
write creatively about helping a creature
All these worksheets (with keys) and the activity printables are included in our printables set—click the red button for previews and details.
The worksheets and printables used for our activities are sold as a complete set. (If you buy our video workshop, all the printables needed are included.)
Common Core State Standards Alignment for the comprehensive use of our teaching ideas and materials is also included for grades 3, 4, 5 and 6.
A LitWits Kit is a bag or box of supplies you pack up and give to each child right before you begin your "field trip" through the story. You might be doing one-off projects as you read through the book together, or you might do everything in this guide from top to bottom after the book has been read. However you explore this book in LitWitty ways, kids love the anticipation of opening their kit.
If you'd like to build your own LitWits Kits for your child/ren, you could easily arrange the items in a bag, basket, or story-relevant container. Honestly, it's just as much fun to create a kit as it is to open one.
To make it all the more fun, our printables for many books include special "story packaging" for certain activity supplies, including BookBites. Click the button below for a specific list of contents for this book.
All Creatures Great and Smallwas read to us, in paraphrased form, when we were kids--we think our mom had a bit of a crush on the good Dr. Herriot, and now that we're grown, we don't blame her. You gotta love a man who gets up at midnight and drives through the icy night to help a cow give birth. Plus, we grew up on a farm, and revered our own country vet. So Dr. Herriot's autobiography was a "natural" choice for one of our experiential workshops. And it's packed with great takeaway topics, which we're sharing below.
In our workshops, we do our best to make these teaching points tangible, meaningful, and memorable in the kids' hands. It's amazing how much kids can learn while they're "just" having fun!
Happy teaching! (Or, if you'd like US to teach this book, check out our video workshop!) Becky & Jenny
Takeaway 1
The Yorkshire Dales
The Dales are not only the real-life setting for the author’s life, but a unique cultural niche within England. You might want to share some of the Norse and Norman history of the region and its effect on the Yorkshire dialect, architecture, and fortitude.(A dialect has its own special words and phrases, whereas an accent is simply a different pronunciation of a shared language.) Share Yorkshire's cultural heritage as well as audiovisuals of Yorkshire landscapes, Norman castles, and farming.
Hands-on connections in this guide: Yorkshire Dales Chalk Art," moor plants and other country props; setting handout; “A Vet’s Life” project; vocabulary handout; BookBites activity
Takeaway 2
A Strong Work Ethic
The life of a country vet is radically different from that of a doctor or even a suburban vet. Though much has changed since Dr. Herriot’s time, some things haven’t: urgent summons in the middle of the night, animals that can’t give birth without human help, and more. It's a disruptive, gooey job, and it takes a certain kind of character to stick with it. If you can arrange for a visit from a large-animal vet, your kids will always remember that. We invited our own country vet, who helped our horses long ago, and still makes”barn calls.”The kids were mesmerized by this very real and equally dedicated version of Dr. Herriot.
Hands-on connections in this guide: “Lost and Found” activity, “Dr. Herriot’s Nightlife Relay” activity, rustic country and veterinary props, theme handout
Takeaway 3
Animal Anatomy
Dr. Herriot’s enthusiasm for his work, and the joy with which he learned about anatomy in college, set a friendly stage for learning some terms and parts. Our science worksheet is about basic equine anatomy, but there are detailed veterinary anatomy charts for other farm animals on sale here, and many video guides to farm animal anatomy on YouTube.
All Creatures Great and Small is chock-full of other subjects to explore, too—from British geography and linguistics to biology, chemistry, and the dangers of smoking and drinking! Scroll down to see our curated Learning Links for more tangential teaching opportunities, and to see how we brought this book and its ideas to life.
Learning Links
Explore these links to supplement your reading experience, research points of interest, and prompt tangential learning opportunities.
When choosing props for our live workshops, we always try to focus on two important categories: props that are unique to the setting, because they help kids understand “what that was like,” and props that are symbolic of themes, because they make big ideas visual and tangible. Both kinds of props generate those wide-eyed, “aha!” moments.
Here's an overview of the display we put together for our live workshop, using props that symbolized "the luxury life that could have been" on the left, and "the rustic life that WAS" on the right. Sometimes we create a printable prop, like Tricki Woo's party invitation and vintage veterinary pharmacy labels—click the button to see all our printables for this book.
Here are some close-ups of our straight-from-the-story props. You could easily have your kids contribute items to a table over time, as the book is being read.
The Luxury Life
that could have been
The life Dr. Herriot could have chosen as symbolized by items from Mrs. Pumphrey’s (Tricky Woo’s) party: shiny dress shoes . . . a luxurious hand towel, fine English soap, a pair of taper candles on brass candlesticks, a china teacup.
The Rustic Life
that he chose
The life Dr. Herriot chose as symbolized by rustic items: an old tin lantern, a bucket of not-too-fresh horse manure, English country flowers, farmers’ gifts of eggs, a pair of Wellingtons, a “heritage bar” of ancient soap, and a piece of burlap for a towel (the latter three taken from the scene of the post-party pigging)
"Pharmacy"
A tray of thrift-store bottles labeled with vintage pharmacy labels, filled with colored water and milk and salt
Medical tools
Cotton balls & swabs
"Wellies"
Primroses
In April the roadside banks were bright with the fresh yellow of the primroses. —Ch. 25
Old tin lantern
Cow bell
Party invitation
Farmer Atkinson's soap
The interminable stripping off in draughty buildings and the washing of hands and chest in buckets of cold water, using scrubbing soap and often a piece of sacking for a towel. —Ch. 13
Mrs. Pumphrey's soap
I looked around as the steaming water ran from the tap. There was my own towel by the basin and the usual new slab of soap — soap that lathered in an instant and gave off an expensive scent. It was the final touch of balm on a gracious evening. —Ch. 19
LitWitty Shareables
Great Quotes
If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans. —Ch. 43
*
Siegfried [and I] had just about decided that the man with a lot of animals couldn't be expected to feel affection for individuals among them. But those buildings back there were full of John Skipton's animals - he must have hundreds. Yet what made him trail down that hillside every day in all weathers? Why had he filled the last years of those two old horses with peace and beauty? Why had he given them a final ease and comfort which he had withheld from himself? It could only be love. —Ch. 45 *
"When all t'world goes one road, I go t'other.” —Ch. 45 *
Then the bull shook himself, turned his head and looked at us. There was an awed whisper from one of the young men: “By gaw, it’s working!” I enjoyed myself after that. I can’t think of anything in my working life that has given me more pleasure than standing in that pen directing the life-saving jet and watching the bull savouring it. —Ch. 26 *
And I could find other excuses to get out and sit on the crisp grass and look out over the airy roof of Yorkshire. It was like taking time out of life. Time to get things into perspective and assess my progress. —Ch. 8 *
“Caution is often a virtue, but in your case you carry it too far. It's a little flaw in your character and it shows in a multitude of ways. In your wary approach to problems in your work for instance, you are always too apprehensive, proceeding fearfully step by step when you should be plunging boldly ahead. You keep seeing dangers when there aren't any, you've got to learn to take a chance, to lash out a bit. As it is, you are confined to a narrow range of activity by your own doubts.” —Ch. 65 *
There has always been a 'and this is where I come in' feeling about a night call. And as my lights swept the cobbles of the deserted market place it was there again, a sense of returning to fundamentals, of really being me.—Ch. 66
You're literally on our page about inspiring kids to love great books. YAY! We're eager to share our passion for LitWitting and the work we've done for over a decade.
We're also eager to keep doing it! :) So if you find this guide-page inspiring* and useful, please share it with your social world. And if you buy our printables for this book, thank you. We appreciate you helping us keep the lights on at LitWits!
Happy teaching, Becky and Jenny Sisters, best friends, and partners
*We hope we've inspired you! If you're feeling a little overwhelmed (we hear that sometimes), remember, you're LitWitting whether you do a lot or a little. You can't go wrong! The learning is happening, trust us. Just take the pressure off and do what works for your kids, time, and budget. It's all about inspiring kids to read for fun, so they want to read more—because kids who read more great books learn more great things.
Or, if you'd like US to teach this book to your kids, check out our video workshop!
Either way, get ready for a bunch of wide-eyed kids having “aha!” moments . . . and you, grinning ear to ear because your kids are happily engaged with a great book.
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LitWits teaching ideas and materials for All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot Copyright 2014 by LitWits Workshops, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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