Mary Had a Little Lamb
Written by: Mary Ann Hoberman
Illustrated by: Nadine Bernard Westcott
Published by Little, Brown, and Company in NY in 2003
ISBN: 0-316-60687-1
Genre(s): Picture Book, Song Book
Reading Level: Kindergarten
Ages: Grades K, 1 (This book is targeted to Kindergartners, but could most likely be read by first graders due to the repetition and their familiarity with the tune.)
Summary: This book begins with the familiar song "Mary Had a Little Lamb." However, the story does not end there. This book continues where most people believe the song ends and details what actually happened when Mary took her lamb to school! During the day the children play with him on the playground, try to teach him how to write his name, count, and say his abc's. In the end the teacher comes to love the little lamb and changes the school rules so that Mary can then bring her lamb to school with her.
Response: This book is so cute for younger children because they would absolutely love singing along with it, especially since they are familiar with the tune. They would love the humorous idea of actually bringing a lamb into a school!
The illustrations are so wonderful in this work. The illustrator shows readers Mary bathing her lamb, playing with her pet in the house, and taking a nap with him after she reads him "Little Bo Peep." Many of the watercolor pictures in this book are double-page spreads of only slightly muted tones, which would keep the interest of young readers and listeners.
Teaching Connections: I believe that this book would be a great way to start the day in a Kindergarten or first grade classroom. For Kindergartners, they have been used to singing these adorable songs all their life, so being able to incorporate that into their daily routine at school would be great. It would be a good way to relax them first thing in the morning when they may be very stressed about coming to school. After reading this book to students, it would also be a great time to introduce them to why we have rules and what the classroom rules are.
The back of this book has other teaching suggestions for this book. Some of these suggestions include doing a math lesson about how much Mary has to spend on her lamb for each of the products she needs to buy, having students draw pictures of Mary and her lamb doing other everyday activities not discussed in the book, making up a few extra verses to this song as an English lesson, identifying rhyming words, and making new and special rules for the lamb at school. Each of these ideas could easily be implemented into a Kindergarten or first grade classroom and are great ideas for implementing this book into other areas of the curriculum such as math.
What Students Learn: From the activities associated with this book, children can learn about the importance of rules, the concept of addition in adding product prices, about rhyming words, and writing sentences.
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