The purpose of the introduction is to spark interest in the book and provide a brief preview of the idea of the book.
Students will also be practicing reading comprehension, predictions, and story sequencing.
The teacher will introduce the lesson by asking the students for some examples of different ways people communicate with one another, e.g. talking, writing, email, telephone. We will then discuss different ways animals communicate, e.g. barking, growling, jumping, yelping.
Next, we will discuss when an author makes an animal or object take on the characteristics of people - personification. We will discuss stories where the authors have used personification - Clifford, Three Little Pigs, Thomas The Train, Winnie The Pooh. At this point, I will introduce the book and ask the students about the cover picture on the front of the book.
We will read the book as a class - stopping at interesting illustrations for inference, predictions, and comprehension. This first reading will include much read aloud/think aloud by the teacher for prediction and comprehension.
The students will be introduced to posters of all the notes passed between the animals and the farmer. The class will read each note aloud with the teacher for fluency with expression.
For small group activities, the students will complete a word scramble of the spelling words related to the story as well as use an actual typewriter to type out one (or more) of the notes from the text.
The lesson will be summarized by discussion of the concept of personification. The class will discuss what things people can do that animals cannot do in real life.