Elementary Library

Resource & Discussion Guide

The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear by Don & Audrey Wood (E WOO) Little Mouse worries that the big, hungry bear will take his freshly picked, ripe, red strawberry for himself.

Discussion prompts: ●​ What predictions can you make about this story from the cover?

●​ What do you see happening on this page? ●​ What clues do we get from the pictures? ●​ Is the bear real?

The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarcone-Roach (E SAR) When a sandwich goes missing, it seems that a bear is the unlikely culprit

Discussion prompts: ●​ Have you ever misplaced something and blamed the wrong person? ●​ How can you discover if someone is telling the truth in a story? What clues would you use to discover the truth?

●​ What evidence is there that bear ate the sandwich? ●​ Make a prediction about what will happen next? ●​ What do you see happening on this page? ●​ Who is trustworthy in this story?

That is Not a Good Idea by Mo Willems (E WIL) A surprising lesson about the importance of listening to one's inner gosling ensues when a very hungry fox issues a dinner invitation to a very plump goose. Discussion prompts: ●​ Did you guess what the goose was planning before it happened? Were you surprised by the ending? Why? ●​ Most people expect the fox to trap the goose. Why is that? If you were the fox, would you have fallen for the goose’s trick? Do you think the author thought you would think the fox was the villain? Why or why not? ●​ Have you ever expected something to happen, then experienced the opposite? Why did you expect it to happen the way that it did? ●​ Did you laugh at the end of the book? What made the ending funny? Do you think the fox was laughing when the goose was trapping him? Are things funnier when they happen to someone else? ●​ Is it funnier when bad things happen to the bad guy, not the good guy? Would you have laughed if the fox had trapped the goose? Why (not)? ●​ We expected the fox to eat the goose, but the opposite happened. Is it always funny when something unexpected happens? If you expected the weather to be rainy, but it was actually sunny, would you laugh?

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