Storytelling

TOWN MOUSE AND COUNTRY MOUSE

I have chosen this book for many reasons:

It was one of my favourite stories when I was a little girl. My aunt usually read it to my cousin and me at night.

I think this is an interesting story and an appropriate book for five-year-old children.

Children have fun with listening because the main characters are animals. In this case the animals are two mice and it is not common to find mice in stories.

They learn more about the differences between town and country.

This story teaches the kids that everyone is different but we can be friends with those differences.

The illustrations are very useful to increase children’s imagination.

To sum up, the descriptions are made with short and very clear sentences which is easier for children to understand the story.

Therefore, vocabulary is also easy and the teacher can teach them some key words to increase their vocabulary.

I like all the colours of the drawings.

From my point of view, these characteristics make the children to be motivated and interested about the story.

ACTIVITIES

Before reading the story

§        The teacher tells the children that she is going to read them an interesting story about a town mouse and a country mouse.

§        She asks them:

- What is the meaning of Town? And, what is the meaning of Country?

- What can you find in a town? And, what can you find in a country?

- What do you think Town Mouse likes to eat? And, what do you think Country Mouse likes to eat? The teacher has to point the pictures to difference each Mouse.

If they don’t know these meanings, the teacher explains them giving the pupils some examples with drawings. In this way, the children can understand the explanation and the meanings better.

During the story

§        The teacher reads the story word by word.

§        The voice of the teacher should be loud and slow, changing her voice to sound like the character in the book. This makes the story interesting and fun to listen to, so, children don’t get distracted easily.

§        When the teacher flips on a new page, she asks the children to guess what might happen in the next scene or she asks something about the pictures.

After reading the story

§        The teacher asks the children to tell her:

- What is the story about?

- Do you like the story? Why?

- Who are the characters?

- Who is your favourite character? Why?

§        The teacher gives a picture of a town and a picture of a country to each pupil. She also gives them some drawings of different kinds of animals. The children have to stick the animals that they can find in the country on the picture of the country and also the animals that they can find in the town on tthe picture of the town. Some of the animals that the teacher gives to the students do not appear in any of these places.

§        The teacher gives a puzzle of a farm to the pupils. They have to fit the pieces.

§     One day the children will go to a country estate to see the animals that they can find there and besides they will see how to take the milk off the cows. The children who will want to milk the cows, they will do it.