Background Information
Teacher Name:
McKenna Pearson
Date of Read Aloud: 3/28
Total Time for Lesson: 25 minutes
Title, Author, and Summary of the Text Used:
Hammy the hamster by T. Albert is a book about a hamster named Hammy and his family's life in South America and how it’s different from his cousins who live with a family. Hammy wants to share the message of being kind to nature, and our pets.
Materials Needed:
Paper, pencils, book, coloring materials
Essential Vocabulary (word and student friendly definition):
Pet: a animal that lives with people that people take care of.
Before Reading
Describe how you will:
Capture students’ interest/ Activate student background knowledge related to the text.
Identify the text and author with some background.
Engage students in thinking about the key vocabulary
Set the purpose for reading.
Before reading the book we went around and shared about our pets. I asked if they had ever had pets and if you have what kind of pet you have and if not what kind of pet you would want to have.
When I began I introduced the book Hammy the hamster and the author and illustrator T. Albert.
Key vocabulary that we identified before starting was pets and what pets are.
Our purpose of reading was set during the beginning activity by starting our read aloud with a discussion about pets.
During Reading
Describe how you will:
Stop at points in the text (what pages, what will you say/do?)
What specific questions will you ask students during the reading?
Page 2. I asked if they they new where South America was because that’s where the hamster is from and I also asked why they thought the hamsters tree where they lived was shaped like the letter “H”
“Why do you think the tree is shaped like the letter H?”
Page 3. I asked why they thought the hamsters were careful when they were out during the day.
“Why do you think the hamsters need to be careful during the day?”
Page 7. I asked what they thought Hammy and his sister found when they were playing.
“What do you think Hammy and Henrietta found in the woods?”
Page 8. I asked if they thought Hammys cousins were sad about living with people or not.
“Do you think Hammys cousins like their human people or not?” “How do you think that makes them feel?”
Page 9. I asked how they think Hammy feels about maybe becoming someone’s pet someday.
“How do you think Hammy feels about becoming a pet someday?”
After Reading Activity
Describe how you will:
Summarize the text for students.
Encourage students to demonstrate their understanding of the text.
I will summarize the text by pointing out the key point of the text that pets normally come from the wild before they come to our homes and that we need to be kind and respectful to nature and our pets.
The activity to wrap up the read aloud is the students will draw their dream pet and write two ways we can treat our pets with kindness.
Closure
(what exactly will you say to end the read aloud and focus students on the goal of the read aloud?)
“What do you guys think Hammy wants us to learn from his book?”… “Hammy wants us to know that we need to treat our pets kindly and take care of them!”
“Now we are going to do an activity so I’m going to pass out pieces of paper and I want you to draw your favorite or dream pet and then write two pays you can be kind to our pets.”