No Puppies Today Lesson

No Puppies Today by Joanna Cole is a cute book that is great to talk about counting, animals, and character feelings. I taught this lesson in summer school with my kindergarten and first graders.

First, I love to have kids connect somehow to the book. For this one my kids got to tell what animals they have at home. Then we read the book and predicted which animal she would get next, roared like lions, talked about the word bison, counted, and added. 

Once we were done with the book, they got a paper to draw any pet they wanted to take home. Kindergarten got a blank paper and I wrote the name of their animal at the top. First graders got a traditional writing page with a blank space for a drawing and lines for them to write a sentence. 

The last part of the lesson is to pair another book and this one perfectly paired with a non-fiction on animals. We happen to have a set of non-fiction books on baby animals in the library so that's what we read aloud to wrap things up. 

Animal Classification Reading Passages

One of the things I find it difficult to teach is science. I am not naturally good at understanding science which makes it harder to explain it.  On top of that, science and social studies somehow always get pushed to the back burner because math and reading take precedence in the classroom.  I am making a concentrated effort to be more effective, but it still manages to slip through the cracks.  I did manage to make this set though to help out with animal classification.

We don't have enough science books for a class set so my students need something in their hands they can read.  Plus, this also has comprehension questions to go with it.  I like using it to review after we've used our science books, talked, done activities, etc.  It has reading passages for mammals, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, vertebrates, invertebrates, and fish. Each passage has an accompanying set of questions that build on all the previous knowledge and answer sheets to go with them.  If you would like to try it out you can grab it here.