Title: The Lion and the Mouse
Author and Illustrator: by Jerry Pinkney
About the author: Jerry Pinkney tells the story through pictures that feature the African landscape. Pinkney studied at the Philadelphia College of Art. He began illustrating children’s books in 1964. He has won five Caldecott Honor Medals and in 2010 he won a Caldecott Medal. He has also won many other awards. He also has many art exhibits and venues. His art is featured in many museums and magazines.
Genre: Fiction/ Fable
Grade Levels: infant- preschool aged children
Synopsis: A wordless picture book adapted from Aesop’s fable. A lion lets a mouse live and the mouse later saves the lion’s life.
Pre-Reading Activities:
*How can a wordless book tell a story?
*How does the artist help you connect the story line?
*Does the artist include any words in his illustrations?
*Discuss inference/infer- connect to: how does the illustrator give you clues in the pictures to help you understand the story? (When I see the illustration _______ I think_______ because________)
Post-Reading Activities:
*Create words to the story as a whole group or independently.
*Have students illustrate their own wordless picture book (assessment: were students able to create a wordless picture book that consisted of the events of a story, included characters, setting, problem, solution, etc.)
*Students create an illustration. They switch pictures with their classmates and then write a story based on the illustration they recieved. Students will pair with the original artist and share the story they chose to write about the picture.(assessment: students were able to draw a picture, switch with a partner, create a story line, share the story with their partner)
*Getting to know each other/diversity- we are all different in many ways but we can still all get along, we all have different strengths to contribute. How are the lion and mouse different? What are their strengths?
My Reflection:
I think that The Lion and the Mouse is a classic story. It is the story of how even though we are different we can still all get along together and share our differences. It also shows how we all are unique and all have different strengths and weaknesses. I think this book could be used at the beginning of the year in get to know you activities. It would also be perfect to use for introducing the parts of a story. Students could also create their own words to go along with the story. This is an assessment in itself as the teacher would be able to assess if the student understood the story's illustrations. This book could also be used to talk about setting as the illustrations portray an African Landscape. This book could also be used as an introductory to an animal unit. I think this book is wonderful as you can take it in many different directions when planning lessons for your classroom.
Work Cited:
Barnes and Noble
I really like that you use wordless books to have students learn how to be creative by creating their own words for the book. It would be interesting to see the similarities and differences between the story that each student gets from the same book.
ReplyDeleteSince this story is wordless it really lends itself to getting the students to tell what they think the characters are thinking or feeling. The themes that this story offers are great to lead into a writing assignment. You could have students tell of a time when they may have been surprised about a person once they acutally got to know them. The colorful and vibrant pictures make this story really eye-catching to students and is a really great book to add in a classroom.
ReplyDeleteI love this story!!! I've read it so many times, and I think it's so adorable. I think it's awesome that it is wordless. It makes children think deeper and I believe that is very important nowadays. Also, I think you could have children tell you stories about how they helped somebody and why.
ReplyDeleteI also like Sarahs comment above. She mentions how "it would be interesting to see similarities and differences between the story that each students gets from the same book". I think that's a great idea, since all kids will probably come up with something different.
I really love the illustration on the cover of this book, it draw me in and makes me wonder what those inside look like. I love the idea of having students write the story in their own words, as a wordless book lends it to that. I also think that it would be interesting to see how different their stories may be-to see how their schemas differ. I think that we would be amazingly surprised by how different their stories may be.
ReplyDeleteThis book is really cute! I think it would be very interesting to see the different versions of the story that children come up with. It would be very interesting to see how their schemas differ.
ReplyDelete