A guide for using our resources

Children will compare favorite animal characters with the real animals they are based on.

Vocabulary: curious, character

Literacy Focus: Read Across America

Simple, spectacular ideas to boost your lessons.

• Read any or all of the books featured in the issue! Discuss how the characters compare with their real animal counterparts, as well as the characters’ traits.
• In addition to traits, you can discusshow the characters evolve and change from the beginning of the story to the end.

• Kids can practice visual discrimination as well as initial sounds with this fun skill sheet!

• Use pages 2-3 of the issue to do this scavenger hunt as a group.

1. Find the heading. Underline it.
2. Find the photo that shows an animal being curious. Put a ✔ on it.
3. Find the book cover with a calm, cool character. Put an ✘ on it.
4. Look at the sidebar. Point to the word that describes you best!

Skill: writing and drawing

Materials: My Animal Character skill sheet, pencils, crayons

• Before kids create their own animal characters, model how to fill out the skill sheet using an animal character kids already know, such as Pete the Cat.
• At the top, write cat and draw a cat. For character traits, you might circle smart and honest, and write in easygoing. Next, you can write that he wears white shoes. Finally, draw a portrait of Pete the Cat in his white shoes and label it with his name.
• Now invite kids to invent their own characters. They can base them on favorite animals. Their characters can have things in common with the real-world animals, or they might be wildly different from them!
• When everyone is done, let kids introduce their characters to the class.