Library Monkeys Lesson
by Mandy Watson
Overview:
Use this lesson at the beginning of the year with pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students. It is designed to stress the importance of book care while having fun learning in the library at the same time!
Objectives:
- Retell or act out important events in stories
- Ask and respond to questions about texts read aloud
- Describe characters in a story and the reasons for their actions
- Use illustrations to make predictions about text
Materials:
· pictures of my family and things I love
· monkey puppet (hidden in bag)
· CD “Party Like a Preschooler” by Go Fish, CD player
· Library Monkeys picture cards by Pat Miller
· Damaged books & pages examples, bookmarks, toilet paper
Lesson:
1. Introduce myself by showing pictures of my family and things I like.
2. Tell students I have a special library guest, so they have to show him how to behave in the library because sometimes he makes poor choices. Intro monkey puppet (hidden in bag).
3. Ask students to raise their hand if they have heard the song “5 Little Monkeys.” Have students get up and sing and dance to the song “Five Little Monkeys” by Go Fish from their CD “Party like a Preschooler.”
4. Talk about how the monkeys made some poor choices in the song. Show picture cards about some monkeys who didn’t take care of their library books, Pat Miller’s Library Monkeys. Read and discuss cards.
5. Show examples of book pages with problems like the ones from Pat Miller’s Library Monkeys. Before each example, say the following chant:
Five Little Monkeys
by Mandy Watson (adapted from idea by Pat Miller)
Five little monkeys reading in bed
One jumped up and showed what he read
Mama took the book and this is what she said,
“I’m so sad you ruined what you read!”
6. Tell the students they are going to go looking for a special book to take home today. As they look, they are going to echo each line of my poem as they march around a table of pre-selected and age appropriate books:
Library Monkeys
by Mandy Watson
We are little monkeys. (Children echo)
We’re looking for a book.
When we find a good one,
First we’ll take a look.
If we like what we picked,
We go and check it out.
We read and take care of it;
“Reading’s fun!” we shout.