Cows in the Kitchen, by June Crebbin is an adorable story about Tom Farmer and his farm animals where preschool and kindergarten students can practice phonemic awareness, and learn about parts of a story such as characters, setting and problem. The way this book is set up, students should be able to retell the story in a sequential manner using visual cues. In this cute children's story, the rhythmic verses follow the pattern of skip to my lou. The story uses repetition of beginning sounds and uses animal noises to help the children learn to read and to keep them engaged. For example, "cows in the kitchen, moo, moo, moo", "pigs in the pantry", "ducks in the dishes", etc. I really enjoyed reading this book at home with my son. He had a lot of fun listening to it, and then reading it back to me. I made animal masks for a lesson plan I used, and had him use them while he was reading the story and he had a blast with them. I would not recommend this book above first grade because it is so simple, but it is great for children under 6!
About the Author: June Crebbin was born in Leicestershire, England in 1938 and still lives there today. At a very young age June loved to write. She began writing stories and poems in a red notebook she bought at the post office as a child. One of the stories she wrote was about a chesnut pony, and her school art teacher illustrated the book for her. As an adult she worked as a teacher, but she retired early to concentrate on writing. She has written over forty children's books, and has also written poetry. She loves horses and rides regularly.
Genre: Fiction, barnyard animals, onomonepeia, learning phonemic awareness
Theme/Skill: Students will identify story characters, setting and problems in a story. Students will retell the story in a sequential manner using visual cues. Students identify letters and phonemes in the beginning and ends of words.
Pre-reading Activity: Class discussion on animals and the sounds they make. Then students will talk specifically about farm animals, and they will try to predict which of these farm animals will be characters in the story.
Post-reading Activity: Students will perform Cows in the Kitchen, using animal masks. They will be able to retell the story in a sequential order with the help of visual cues.
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