Summary

Max’s sister helps him clean up his messy room. Max doesn’t like to see his favorite things put away out of sight, or worse, thrown out. Max’s pocket gets fuller and fuller.

Activities

1. Max had a popsicle. Find out who invented the popsicle.

2. Make popsicle stick puppets. Paint or glue craft eyes on to one end of the popsicle stick. Cut items of clothing from paper or fabric and glue to the stick. Make up a story with your puppets.

3. Max had his dump truck from his sandbox. Color the sandbox or dump truck.

4. Max had Miracle Bubble. Follow the steps at Bubbles of Fun to make your own bubble solution and bubble makers. Note: Directions are written for the adult.
   To the teacher: Try some of these other Bubbles sites.

5. Max had an ant farm. Draw a line all around the edge of a sheet of brown construction paper to make an ant farm. Draw tunnels and ants in the tunnels. To the teacher: Use other Ant Activities.

6. Study how ants live. Then complete the cloze activity Ant Colony. Study the life of ants. Then complete the cloze activity on Ant Anatomy and Life.

7. Max had an Easter egg. Print out the Easter egg coloring page created by Debi Koontz.

8. Max had a Quack-Quack duck. Sing Five Little Ducks.

9. Max had gum-on-a-string. Make up math problems based on these prices:
   • A licorice string costs $1.50.
   • A rock candy string costs $1.00.
   • A bubble gum string costs $1.25.
   
   
10. Max had a toybox. Play Hide-and-Seek with Clifford as he puts his toys away in his toybox.

11. Play Toybox Relay. Place two large cardboard boxes on the playground. Collect as many items as there are students and scatter them in front of the boxes. Half of the class lines up behind each box. At the starting signal, the first child in each line runs to pick up an item, places it in the box for his/her team, and tags the next student in line, who runs to collect another item.

12. "The art was created using ink, water colors, rubber stamps, gouache, markers, colro pencils, pastels, string, cotton, rubber ants, cloth, bird gravel, silver foil, a glue gun, feathers, fabric paint, and Miracle Bubbles." (from the verso of the title page of the book). Talk about how each would be used. Find a page for each item where it might have been used.

13. Read other books in the Max and Ruby series.
    • Bunny Cakes, 1999
    • Bunny Party, 2001
    • Max and Ruby in Pandora’s Box, 1998
    • Max’s Chocolate Chicken, 1998
    • Max’s Dragon Shirt. paperback, 2000
    • Ruby’s Beauty Shop, 2002
    • Ruby’s Falling Leaves, (paperback), September, 2007
    • Max & Ruby’s Winter Adventure, (paperback), September, 2007

About the Author

• Rosemary Wells’s Website

• in-depth interview, 2004 (PDF)

• biography article by P. M. Newman

• Rosemary Wells, a schoolpage. Note: color selection used makes text difficult to read.

Awards

• Building Block Picture Book nominee, 2002, Missouri (preschool award)

Related books

• Brown, M. (1999). Arthur, clean your room! Random House. grades K-3

• Cummings, P. (1991). Clean your room, Harvey Moon! Simon & Schuster. grades K-3

• DiPucchio, K. (2005). Mrs. McBloom, clean up your classroom! Hyperion. grades K-4

• Schotter, R. (1993). When crocodiles clean up. Macmillan. grades Preschool-3

More for the teacher

• Use this mini-unit from TeacherVision. Discuss how Max tucks his belongings into his pocket as if they were treasures. Ask students to decorate a box with paint, glitter, sequins, and metallic paper. Then have them choose several "treasures" from home to place inside their treasure box and to show their classmates. When sharing, have students explain the personal significance of their treasures.
  The World of Rosemary Wells at TeacherVision gives follow-up activities for other books she has written.

• Extensive lesson plans based on Bunny Cakes, another Max and Ruby story. (Microsoft Word document).
  

Assessment

Max Cleans Up. Accelerated Reader: Quiz #45148 EN; Book Level 2.6; Points= 0.5

• Arthur, Clean Your Room! by Brown, Marc. AR Quiz #1948 EN; Book Level 2.4; Points= 0.5. Reading Counts Level 1.9; Points 2. Lexile Level 370.
• Bunny Cakes by Wells, Rosemary. AR Quiz #19212 EN; Book Level 2.6; Points= 0.5. Book Adventure Level 1.0. Reading Counts Level 1.9; Points 1. Lexile Level 550. Guided Reading Level J.
• Max’s Chocolate Chicken by Wells, Rosemary. Book Adventure Level 2.0. Reading Counts Level 1.5; Points 1. Lexile Level 300. Guided Reading Level I. word count=271.
• Max’s Dragon Shirt by Wells, Rosemary. AR Quiz #15800 EN; Book Level 2.5; Points= 0.5. Reading Counts Level 2.2; Points 1. Lexile Level 470. Guided Reading Level I. word count=458.
• Ruby’s Beauty Shop by Wells, Rosemary. AR Quiz #59850 EN; Book Level 2.2; Points= 0.5.