Erin Parker
Subject: Children’s Literature Book – “IF YOU GIVE A MOOSE A MUFFIN” by Laura Joffe Numeroff
Age Group: Pre-School, Kindergarten

Introduction:
“IF YOU GIVE A MOOSE A MUFFIN” (1991) was written by Laura Joffe Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond. The book was text and copy written in 1991 and the first Scholastic printing in September 1992. One of the many series of books has written by Laurs Joffe Numeroff the writing style use a circular story format, presenting to the reader a chain of events. At the end of the story, the reader discovers that the characters have ended up in the same event that they started with. The entire story is an "If ____________, then ___________" scenario.
The Story:
The story begins with a boy throwing a muffin out of the window to a moose in his yard. The moose walks right threw the door and demands some jam to go with it. The moose wants another and another and when they are all gone he wants you to make some more. They have to go to the store to get more muffin mix, it is chilly outside so the moose asks for a sweater to stay warm. The sweater is small and the buttons burst, he asks for needle and thread, which sparks a memory of his grandmother making sock puppets. The make scenery for the show with paints and they put on a puppet show. As the moose is behind the couch for the puppet show his antlers stick out so he asks for something to cover them up, the boy gets a sheet and the moose loses focus and now wants to be a ghost for Halloween, yells “BOO”, scares him and knocks over all the paints used for the scenery. The moose wants to clean the mess so he asks for soap and water and then wans to hang the sheet outside to dry where he notices the blackberry bushes. This reminds him of her jam for the muffins. The boy knows that if he offers the moose the jam, he will want a muffin to go with it.
Themes: From making a mess to cleaning it up the story teaches children the importance of friendship, creativity, and responsibility. Sharing and taking turns sharing.
Vocabulary: “Homemade” original “Blackberry” type of berry “Chilly” cold “Scenery” pictures “Clothesline” let clothes dry outside.
Language Arts- Activity: Circle Stories - Explain to the children that a “circle story” is a story that begins and ends in the same place. Show the children how “If You Give a Moose a Muffin” starts with the moose wanting a muffin and ends the same way. You could introduce compound words to your students as blackberry: is a compound word, let’s see if the children can find other compound words in the story (homemade, another, grandmother, cardboard, something, clothesline). 
Ask the children if they know what homemade is? Using the letter “M”, referring it to moose and muffins. You could ask the children if they could point out any other words in the book with the letter “M”. Another activity to do is to walk around the room and locate items that start with the letter “M”. You could during circle time talk about the Moose, ask them if they think if Moose really do eat muffins? Math- Activity: Counting Berries - Line two muffin tins with paper baking cups. Use a marker to label each paper-baking cup with a number. There will be 24 cups (twelve in each tin). Set out a bowl of dark purple or black plastic beads (“blackberries”). Giving instruction of how many berries they need to put into each paper-baking cup to make each muffin. The children identify the number in each paper cup and place the corresponding number of “blackberries” in each. Science- Activity: Signs of the Seasons - Show the children the pages in the book that show signs of Fall (leaves have changed color and are falling off of the trees, the boy and moose are wearing sweaters, the moose is thinking about a Halloween costume, etc.). Discuss the signs (Characteristics) of other seasons. The moose talked about how he was cold and needed a sweater, ask the children what they should wear when the weather changes? Look out the window and see if the trees have green leaves on them, or are they multicolored and on the ground. Social Studies- Activity: Using the first line of the story, “If you give a moose a muffin”, ask the children to make predictions (as you write them on the board). As you read have the children tell you what they may think happen next, write down all of their predictions before moving on to the next pages. At the end of the story have each child will create their own cause/effect sentence with an illustration that will be put all together for a cause/effect classroom book. Visual Arts- Activity: Using Fine motor skills, the children can trace their feet on brown construction paper and cut it out for the face of the moose. Trace their hands on yellow construction paper and cut them out for the antlers of the moose. Along with tracing and cutting, you could have a large cardboard and have the children paint the scenery on it as was used in the story and glue the moose’s face to the scenery for than the children can replicate the part of the puppet show. Dramatic Play- Activity: Puppet Theater. Use old socks/mittens and a variety of craft materials to create hand puppets. Have puppet scenery ready-to-use for when they are finished with their puppets. Let them be creative about the theme of the play! The children can retell the story with their puppets. Movement Activity: Sing the song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes Diversity/Differentiation- Discussing with the children the cause and effects throughout the story. When you state what happened (cause) with a quote form the book, you can end with what did happen (effect). Examples: You gave him a muffin (cause) he wanted jam (effect). The moose ate all of then (cause) all the muffins were gone (effect).In your classroom you may have some children whom may not understand/grasp the concepts very easy. With this book you can use the use of props to tell the story, having a