Every Monday, I highlight a book from our school bookroom along with lesson plan suggestions.
Papagayo: The Mischief Maker, by Gerald McDermott
Papagayo is a loud parrot, and the night creatures don’t care for all his squawking. But they start to change their tune when a giant dog wakes up and begins chomping on the moon.
Second graders in Federal Way have a science unit on weather. It might be fun to use this and other weather legends to explain how different cultures used to explain conditions in nature.
This book is by Gerald McDermott, who won the Caldecott award for Arrow to the Sun and a Caldecott Honor for Anansi the Spider. He’s another great candidate for an author study.
You could also read this book with The Parrot Tico Tango or fellow Caldecott winner Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears. For a more advanced conversation, consider — why were so many legends and folk tales selected for Caldecotts in the 1970s and 1980s? You might want to look at this link for some new perspectives.
Plenty of lesson plans are available for trickster tales, which is the subgenre this book falls into. Did you know Papagayo has been made into an opera? And if you’re in Nebraska, you might even be able to catch McDermott’s show at the Joslyn Art Museum!
There is a CAFE menu included with this mentor text, and I’ve highlighted these as suggestions:
Comprehension
- Retell the story. This is a pretty basic plot line, so it would be a useful to book to use to help students either increase or decrease the level of detail in the retells, depending on what’s necessary.
- Ask questions throughout the reading process. Because the book follows a time pattern (first one night, then the next night, etc.), checking in on how predictions and ideas change would be able to happen at pretty natural stopping points.
Vocabulary
- Voracious reading. Voracious readers encounter many exciting verbs, which helps them avoid overusing words like “said,” “happy,” “sad,” and “mad.” Papayago and company use a wide variety of verbs. You might want to take a peek at this as well:
Please add any lessons or supplemental materials to the book bag so future teachers can utilize your good thinking!
Comments and constructive feedback are always welcomed. Please let me know if these lessons were useful in your class!
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