City Animals - Lesson Plans

City Animals
Level E

About the Book

Text Type: Nonfiction/Informational
Page Count: 12
Word Count: 109

Book Summary
City Animals is an informative book that introduces readers to animals that may be found in cities. Students will read about unusual city animals, such as hawks and opossums and animals with which they are more familiar, such as dogs and squirrels. The repetitive text pattern is illustrated with photographs.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

Make, revise, and confirm predictions

Objectives

Make, revise, and confirm predictions based on text information
Identify main idea and details
Blend phonemes to say words
Identify and read words with s-family blends
Recognize verbs
Categorize content words related to animals

Materials

Book -- City Animals (copy for each student)
Chalkboard or dry erase board
Main idea and details, s-family blends worksheets
Word journal (optional)

Indicates an opportunity for student to mark in the book. (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are reusable.)

Vocabulary

High-frequency words: live, they
Content words: city, animals, mice, squirrels, geese, ducks, pigeons, opossums, hawks, dogs, raccoons

Before Reading

Build Background

Ask students to tell you kinds of animals that live in their area. Write the names of these animals on the board. Have them tell you what these animals eat and where they can be found.
Ask students to describe what they know about a city. Ask them what kinds of animals live in a city. Have students discuss what these animals might eat and where they might live in the city.

Book Walk

Introduce the Book

Show students the front and back covers of the book and read the title with them. Ask what they think they might read about in a book called City Animals. (Accept any answer that students can justify.)
Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Make, revise, and confirm predictions

Explain that good readers make predictions, or guesses, about what will happen in a story. Explain that making predictions can help people to make decisions, solve problems, and learn new information. Emphasize that knowing how to make predictions is more important than whether the prediction is right, or confirmed.
Model using the cover pictures of the book to make a prediction.
Think-aloud: I know that readers can look at the cover of a book to get an idea of what the book is about. Looking at the cover pictures, I see four animals. I have seen these animals before. I know that they are raccoons. I know that raccoons can get into trash cans and make big messes as they search for food. I wonder if this book is about messy raccoons that live in the city. Making predictions about the book gets me thinking about it and gives me a purpose for reading because I want to find out if my predictions are right.
Have students use the pictures on the covers and title page to make a prediction before reading the book. Invite them to share their prediction.
As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Vocabulary

Have students turn to page 3 in their book. Point out the word people. Ask students to look at the letters at the beginning and ending of the word. Have students look at the picture on the page and tell you the word. Repeat with other vocabulary words if necessary.
Remind students to look at the beginning and ending sounds, and other parts that they recognize, to help them say words. They should also check whether a word makes sense by looking at the picture or rereading the sentence.
Encourage students to add the new vocabulary words to their word journals.
For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

Have students read to find out if the words in the book confirm their predictions based on the text and the pictures.

During Reading

Student Reading

Guide the reading: Give students their copy of the book. Have a volunteer point to the first word on page 3. Read the word together (Many). Point out where to begin reading on each page. Remind students to read words from left to right. Point to each word as you read it aloud while students follow along in their own book.
Ask students to place a finger on the page number in the bottom corner of the page. Have them read to the end of page 6, using their finger to point to each word as they read. Encourage students who finish before others to reread the text.
Model revising a prediction.
Think-aloud: Before reading, I predicted that I would read about messy raccoons that live in the city. So far, I've read about many animals that live in the city. I wonder what other animals live in the city. I know that people often have dogs as pets. I predict that I will also read about these animals.
Have students think about the prediction they made before reading. Invite them to share the outcomes of their predictions.
Have students read the remainder of the book. Encourage them to continue to make, revise, and/or confirm predictions as they read the rest of the story.

Have students make a small question mark in their book beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

After Reading

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their book. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
Invite students to discuss whether their predictions turned out to be true or whether they needed to be revised. Reinforce that making predictions about what they are reading helps them get meaning from the book and gives them a purpose for reading.
Think-aloud: I predicted that dogs also live in the city. This prediction was correct. I learned that people often bring their dogs to the park.
Discuss additional strategies students used to gain meaning from the book.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Main idea and details

Discussion: Ask students what new things they learned about animals that live in cities. Ask whether they were surprised by any of the animals living in the city and to tell why.
Introduce and model the skill: Explain to students that books they read have a main idea that tells what the book is about. The title of the book and the pictures can be clues to identify the main idea. Discuss the main idea of this book. (Different kinds of animals live in the city.) Explain that there are facts in the book that tell about the kinds of animals.
Think-aloud: Page 3 doesn't give me any details about animals that live in cities, but page 4 does. It tells me that mice live in cities. This detail tells about the main idea.
Check for understanding: Have students turn to page 5 in their book. Have them tell you another detail that supports the main idea.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the main idea and details worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Extend the discussion: Instruct students to circle the animal(s) that don't live in their area. Discuss why animals live in different places.

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Blend phonemes

Say the word ducks by segmenting the sounds: /d/ /u/ /k/ /s/. Model how to blend the sounds together to say the word.
Say the following words, one at a time, by segmenting the sounds in the words: geese, park, pond, swim, live, nest, feed, trash, food. Have students blend the sounds together to say the words.

Phonics: S-family blends

Have students turn to page 5 and read the second sentence. Ask them to find a word that starts with the /sw/ sound. Write the word swim on the board and circle the sw blend. Explain that the sounds of the letters s and w blend together to make the /sw/ sound. Tell students that this is one s-family blend.
Write the following s-family blends on the board: sc, sk, sl, sm, sn, sp, st, and sw. Have students brainstorm words with each blend. Write these words on the board.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the s-family blends worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Grammar and Mechanics: Verbs

Have students reread page 3. Ask them to tell you which word tells what the people and the animals do in cities (live). Have them circle the word.
Have them reread page 4 and find two words that tell what the mice do (live, eat).
Have students work in pairs to find all the words in the rest of the book that tell what the animals and people do. Students should find the words live, swim, make, like, feed, come, bring, take, and see. When students have finished, have them share their words. Correct any inappropriate answers by asking whether the word is something that tells what the animals or people do.

Word Work: Alphabetical order

Write the words mice and ducks on the board. Underline the first letter in each word. Ask students what letter comes first in the alphabet: m or d.
Review or explain that words are sometimes placed in a list by ABC, or alphabetical, order. Words are placed in alphabetical order by looking first at the initial letter in each word and deciding which letter comes first in the alphabet. Explain that ducks would come first in an alphabetical list.
List the content vocabulary words out of order on the board. Have students write the words in alphabetical order on a separate piece of paper. When they have finished, discuss their answers.

Build Fluency

Independent Reading

Allow students to read their book independently. Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection

Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends.

Extend the Reading

Writing and Art Connection
Have students use the pattern of the book (animal + something it does) and invented spelling to write about an animal they have seen recently. For example, Cats live in cities. They sit in the sun. Or, Cats live in the country. They eat mice. Have them draw a picture of the animal they wrote about.

Math Connection
Make a bar graph using the names of the city animals in the book. Ask each student to write his or her name on a line on the graph to show the city animals he or she has seen. Tally the names to find out which animal(s) students saw most and least often.

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

make logical predictions about the book and revise/confirm as they get more information
identify the details about the animals in the book and record these in the correct spaces on the worksheet chart
blend sounds to say whole words
read words with s-family blends
correctly identify the verbs in the book
accurately place a list of words in alphabetical order

Comprehension Checks

Go to "City Animals" main page