Monkey and Me

Monkey and Me
by Emily Gravett
(2008)

A little girl and her monkey pretend to be different zoo animals, from bats to penguins. Readers can have fun guessing what animal is being imitated in each picture and then turn to page to find out if they are correct.

Mini-Lesson: Inferences

Introduce this book to students by telling them that it is about a little girl who likes to pretend that she is different zoo animals with her toy monkey. Their job is to guess what animal the girl is pretending to be by thinking about the clues in the picture. As each set of hints is shown, ask the students what their predictions are and why they think it could be that animal. The teacher may want to list the animals that are guessed and the reason for the guess. After showing the answer, talk about the inferences and discuss how students were able to infer from the pictures what animal the girl was pretending to be.

Discuss with students why it is important for students to make inferences when reading. Readers figure learn more about the characters and events in a reading by sing clues that may not be written in the text. Good readers use their schema, or prior knowledge, and the picture to understand more about their reading.

This activity can be followed up by having the students play a game where they imitate an animal for a partner or the class to guess based on the clues given.