Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith

For my second blog entry, I chose another Toon Book, Little Mouse Gets Ready.  This book received a Theodor Seuss Geisel honor award for its efforts in reaching the very young readers.  Its a perfect story for my young kindergarteners!  I hope that you will appreciate it's simplicity as much as I did. 

Little Mouse struggles to get dressed but is clearly proud that he can do it himself-- such a relatable topic for little ones.  Each page describes his efforts to dress for a trip to the barn.  Jeff Smith, author of the award-winning graphic novel series, Bone, includes humor and a surprise ending that kids will enjoy.   Much of the text is decodable for students near the end of kindergarten or first grade.  I am positive preschool children would enjoy hearing this story read aloud. 

There are very few words that typical school-age native English speakers would not know.  However, if your classroom is like mine, there are quite a number of English Language Learners or students with very limited language development.  For that reason, I chose to include words and phrases that I believe ELLs would need explicitly explained.

Vocabulary: barn, "oh boy," sir, tag, oats, tricky, sleeve,

Close Reading Comprehension Questions:
How do we know the Little Mouse has dressed himself before? p. 10
What do you think he will put on next? p. 13 (after first frame)
What could his mama mean? p. 25