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Laura Numeroff Website
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
If You Take a Mouse to School
If You Give a Moose a Muffin
If You Give a Pig a Party
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies
If You Give a Pig a Pancake
If You Give a Cat a Cupcake
If You Give a Pig a Party
If You Give an Author a Pencil
Laura Numeroff's Ten Step Guide to Taking Care of Your Monster
Cammie Price Unit Plan: Laura Numeroff Author Study
mentor texts:
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
In Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, a tiny mouse ask for a glass of milk to go with his cookie. Then he continues to want more and more with each wish being granted. At the end of the story, he gets a glass of milk and in return wants another cookie. This is a great story to use for teaching cause and effect and it's predictable pattern is great for beginning readers. Numeroff uses and If/Then pattern and circular structure in this story.
If You Give a Moose a Muffin
In this story, a silly moose begins with wanting a muffin. After he gets his muffin, he wants some blackberry jam to go with it. Once he is granted a wish, he finds something else he will need to go with it. Students think Moose looks very funny in his sweater in this story. This story is a sequel to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Numeroff uses text patterns and circular structure in this story to make it an easy read.
If You Give a Pig a Party
Students will fall in love with this special Pig that Numeroff created. She begins with getting a pancake which turns into wanting to throw a party. At her party she wants lots of balloons, guests, and a special party dress. This Pig needs several supplies. Students will be able to relate to this Pig and other characters having a street fair, playing games, and a sleep over. Students are able to help read during read aloud by recognizing the If/Then patterns that Numeroff uses.
If You Give a Cat a Cupcake
Students had already been exposed to the Cat in this story in Numeroff's If You Give a Pig a Party. The Cat in this story begins with a cupcake and in return wants sprinkles to go with it. Sprinkles make a mess and that leads to a clean up. The Cat goes through the story with silly happenings and at the end of the story, she gets sprinkles and asks for a cupcake to go with it. This If/Then story also is good to use while teaching cause/effect and circular structure.
Class Noticings Chart: created whole group in class
*the same characters can be found in different stories (ex. the cat can be found in If You Give a Cat a Cupcake and in If You Give a Pig a Party)
*colorful pictures
*things happen that can't really happen with animals in real life
*pages alternate between If and Then
*characters in these stories are funny
*Numeroff uses circular structure: she ends the story the same way it begins
*each story has an animal in it
*each story has a problem
*the animals do make believe things that are funny
*the main character always gets their wishes granted
*the main character is an animal
*all of her titles in this series start with If You Give A _________________ a _______________________
Reflection:
We began our unit study by going to Laura Numeroff's website and learning more about her as an author. Her website is kid friendly and my students enjoyed learning about her. I then read If You Give a Pig a Party as a read aloud. Students chimed in throughout the story to help me read. Several heard this story in kindegarten and many were able to read this story on their own. We talked about things Numeroff did throughout the story/what we noticed. On days 2 and 3, students were in small groups and had various Laura Numeroff If/Then books to browse and read. Groups would switch books and write down on sticky notes things they noticed. On day 4, we combined our noticings from all books and completed a class noticings chart.
On day 5 we created our own class If/Then book, called If You Give a First Grader Recess. We began with when you give a first grader recess, they always ask for water. We continued the story with the first grader asking for more time at recess, sports balls, and complaining that it was too hot. Here are a few pages from our class book:
page 1 :If you give a first grader recess, he will want some water.
page 2: When you give him water, he will want a snack to go with it
page 3: After he eats his snack, he will be full and want to take a nap
page 4: After he wakes up, he will want to go outside and play with his friends
page 5: When he is outside with his friends, he will ask if he can play ball
page 6: When he gets hot playing at recess, he will ask for some more water.
For our culminating activity, students were given mini books to create their own If/Then pattern books. Students had to come up with their own title and many were ready to begin before I could even pass out their books. In the books, I was looking for the If/Then text pattern and for the circular structure. Most of my students did this with ease and had wonderful stories. My struggling readers/writers had extra assistance from myself and my assistant to help with the circular story. We even had the principal come in and listen to our stories because we were so proud of them!
In students' stories, you could clearly see the close study between their work and Numeroff's. Here are a few examples of students' stories:
Student samples:
student: Carter
title: If You Give a Rhino a Scooter
page 1: If you give a rhino a scooter, he'll want to take a ride around the neighborhood.
page 2: If he rides around the neighborhood, he will ask for a helmet to go with it.
page 3: Then he will see the park.
page 4: When he's at the park, he will invite his friends to play.
page 5: After he played with his friends, rhino gets tired and goes home.
page 6: When he goes home he goes to sleep.
page 7: When he wakes up, he sees some wheels on a car.
page 8: Of course if he sees the wheels on the car, it will remind him of his scooter.
*I absolutely love when he used, "of course" on page 8. His illustrations go well with his story.
student: Zoe
title: If You Give a Moose a Lemon
page 1: If you give a moose a lemon,
page 2: He will want some tea.
page 3: Then he will want to go to the park.
page 4: He'll want you to push him on a swing.
page 5: He'll probably fall off.
page 6: He will get hot and he will then ask for some water.
page 7: When he gets the water, he will spill it and slip!
page 8: The water will remind him of the tea...
page 9: and he'll ask for a lemon to go with it.
*Zoe ended her story the exact same was as Numeroff using, "it will remind him." She also used an ellipses to build up to her ending. I thought this was a very creative story!
student: Alex
title: If You Give a Penguin a Snowball
page 1: If you give a penguin a snowball
page 2: He'll want to have a snowball fight.
page 3: That will remind him of home.
page 4: Then he'll notice the tree in the yard.
page 5: When he notices the tree, you'll have to take him home
page 6: Then accidently you'll sendhim a list of things he did.
page 7: Then he'll see the snowball fight...and he will ask for a snowball fight to go with it.
*I thought this story was pretty interesting. Most children chose the typical farm animal, however Alex picked to write about a penguin. This is a student that is very bright but doesn't enjoy writing. However, when he was given this assignment, he had a little "glow" about him. He enjoyed writing this and was able to use his quirky sense of humor.
student: Shannon
title: If You Give a Pig an Apple
page 1: If you give a pig an apple,
page 2: she'll want a friend to eat it with
page 3: Then she'll want to take her friend to the park
page 4: Then they will want to play on the slide
page 5: She will want to take her friend on the swings with her
page 6: Then she will see a circus and she will ask for you to take her and her friend to the circus.
page 7: At the circus, she will want you to get her some popcorn
page 8: After she was full of popcorn, she will want something healthy
page 9: and chances are...
page 10: she will ask for an apple
*Shannon also used Numeroff's wording of "chances are."
This was a great unit to do with first graders. I learned more about them as learners and they learned more about themselves. This was one of our first major units where students tried to write like authors. They enjoyed it and now have a keepsake that will help remind them about Laura Numeroff.
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