Edward the Emu

It's Wednesday and I'm getting super wild today! Let's take a trip to the zoo and visit Edward - an adventurous Emu. Also, if you have a new or recent post about how to use a specific book in therapy link up with your ideas! Just use the picture below to link back to me.

Yesterday was Election Day - so there was no school for me! I spent the day relaxing and I also finished up a book companion I started awhile ago. If you haven't read Edward the Emu by Sheena Knowles, please do so ASAP! I first learned about this book in graduate school. I was placed in a Head Start setting that focused on dialogic book reading. My supervisor handed me this book and I absolutely fell in love!

The book begins with an Emu that is absolutely bored! He's tired of being an Emu... so when the Zookeeper goes home at night he sneaks out of his pen! He tries his hand at being a variety of animals: a seal, a lion, and a snake. But when he overhears a zoo visitor say that they think the Emus are the best he becomes overjoyed and wants to be an Emu again! This book is fantastic! It's written with rhyming words so it lends itself well to phonological awareness activities, it's great for sequencing, and so much more!

You can find this book companion by clicking HERE. It supports a variety of receptive and expressive language skills, including:

Sequencing:  Print and laminate the sequencing map and story tiles.. and add velcro! This book is perfect for little ones who are struggling with sequencing events, as there are only four major events in the story.

Comprehension: There are 18 cards included that target a variety of comprehension levels - right-there questions to inferential questions.

Emu Pronouns: This book is great for teaching "he" and "she," as there is a boy emu and a girl emu. When Edward struts back to his cage he finds Edwina! She's new to the zoo and he finally has a friend! This cute card game features Edward and Edwina - students draw a card and fill in the blank with the correct pronoun.

Zookeeper says.... This game targets multistep directions that are embedded with temporal concepts. Edward is always sneaking behind the Zookeepers back! Challenge students to do a better job listening to the Zookeeper! Students draw a card and follow the direction. If they are correct they get to keep the card. If they draw a card that reads, "You escaped from the zoo!" they get to take an extra turn!

Zoo Rhymes: There are a variety of ways to use these rhyming cards. Students can play a memory game (flip all the cards over and students look for matches) or students can draw a card and produce a word that rhymes with the given word. These cards feature zoo animals (a great opportunity to review zoo vocabulary!) and all the rhyming words come from the book.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I do! It's a great book to use before students go on a zoo field trip or any time of the year!

Have a Wild Wednesday! Don't forget to enter my Mega Articulation Raffle, check it out HERE.