The Squirrel Anonymous Becky Miles Poem Lesson Whisky

“The Squirrel” -Anonymous Becky Miles’ Poem Lesson

Whisky Frisky, Hippity Hop, Up he goes To the tree top! Whirly, Twirly, Round and round Down he scampers To the ground Furly, Curly What a tail! Tall as a feather Broad as a snail! Where’s his supper? In the shell, Snappity, crackity Out it fell!

Day 1 Thinking Critically • • What is a squirrel? What do squirrels like to do? Where can you find a squirrel? What are some words that describe squirrels and what they do?

Day 2 Exploring Language • Some of the difficult words in the poem: scampers, whisky, whirly, broad, furly • For this day, the students can play a game of charades with the words from the poem. Some of the words that they could act out would be: whirly, twirly, scamper, round and round, hippity, hop, up, tree, fell. • Another activity would be to play vocabulary Pictionary in group of four. One student draws a card and the other students need to try and guess the word they are drawing. This poem works well for this because there a lot of descriptive words including: ground, tree, snail, tall, feather, round, shell, tail, up, and down.

Day 3 Exploring Language • We will talk about the punctuation in the poem. (Ex. question marks, exclamation points, commas) • The students can write the poem in the form that the poem takes shape of. They could write it twirling on the page or in the shape of a tree. They will use the words to help determine what shape to create. See next slide for an example.

Day 4 Exploring Language • Consonant blends – Broad, crackity, frisky, ground, tree, scampers, frisky, whisky, snail, snappity, shell, the, feather, what, where, whisky, whirly, crackity, squirrel • Vowels – Long a- a, tail, snail, – Short a- what, and, tall, as, snappity, crackity, – Short i- whisky, hippity, frisky, whirly, twirly, his, in, it – Long o- goes, – Short o- to, top, broad, out

• Vowel combinations – Tail, snail, feather, tree, broad, goes, round, ground, out, squirrel • R, L, W Controlled Vowels – Feather, where, supper, scamper, squirrel, whirly, twirly, furly, curly, down • Syllables – 1 syllable- hop, up, he, goes, to, the, tree, top, round, and, down, ground, what, a, tail, tall, as, broad, snail, his, where’s, in, the , shell, out, it, fell – 2 syllables- whisky, frisky, whirly, twirly, scampers, furly, curly, feather, supper, – 3 syllables- hippity, snappity, crackity,

• Prefixes/suffixes – Whirly, twirly, furly, curly; feather, scamper, supper; whisky, whirly, what, where • Plurals – (N/A) • Contractions – Where’s • Compound words – (N/A) • Silent letters – Crackity, goes, feather, supper • Sight words – The, and, a, in, it, he, as, his, what, up, out, down

Day 5 Processing Information • Today, we will sing the poem. It goes to the tune of “Wags the Dog. ” • Once the students learn the song, they can add actions where the poem describes what is happening. – Scampering, whirly, twirly, down, up, hop, round and round, down to the ground, tail, tall, broad, fell