Predictable Pattern

Citation:  Keats, E. J.  (1999) . Over in the meadow. New York: Viking and Puffin                                     Books.

ISBN #:  0-670-88344-1

Content of the story: 

This story is a poem about different animals that live in a meadow with their babies. It introduces the numbers one through ten. The first animal is a turtle and her little baby. The book shows what the animals do all day. The next animal we encounter is a fish and her two babies. The story continues on with birds, muskrats, bees, crows, crickets, lizards, frogs, and fireflies. It shows the relationship between the parents and their babies, and on each page there’s a larger number of children until we reach the number ten.

 The reason for three to five year olds:

I would use this book for three to five year olds because they are able to understand it. It has fantastic illustrations to go along with a great story. Three to five year olds can learn the song that goes along with this book, and be able to sing it. This book teaches the children to count up to ten in a really fun way. It also shows where each of the different animals live. (Fish live in the stream and birds in a tree)

Illustration comment:

The illustrations in this book are so great.  They look as though they’ve been painted on. You feel as though you are actually where the animals are when you look at the pages. There are autumn colors in this book that make you feel cozy. The illustrations make you want to jump inside of the pages and see these animals.

Provocation:

I would play the song before reading the book. This would spark interest and hopefully connections would be made that the song is the same as the book.

Presentation:

1.    Present this book by reading it to the children at circle time.

2.    Teach the song to the children. The children can make up actions for each animal while singing the song. (Ex. Hands together swimming like a fish)

3.    The third way to present this book is to make masks for all the mother animals and hand them out to ten children. We would sing the song and every time the mother (a child in the class who has a mask) tells the children to do something, such as “dig”, everyone must do that action.

Extension:

1.    Talk about the things our mothers ask us to do, such as “make your bed!” or “Clean that mess!”  Discuss with the children their roles at home, and what things they do during the day.

2.    There could be a discussion about different kinds of homes. The children can talk about and draw the house they live in and their families.

3.    The children can play with sand and have little plastic animals in the sand, such as turtles. On the water table, there can be plastic fish and frogs to play with.