GUEST BLOGGER LINDA JOY SINGLETON
Word play with homonyms
KID & KID carefully chooses homonym-pairs of verbs to describe dual-yet-converging storylines about a country girl preparing her young goat to be shown at the county fair. Word pairings such as “play,” “mess,” and “brush” provide reader-friendly ways to think about the nuances of language. This colorful picture book is useful for teaching beginning readers about comparing word concepts and celebrating farm life, completing the trilogy of books about homonyms.
Fun fact—A group of goats is called a trip. In KID & KID the homonym “trip” shows side-by-side contrasting pictures of a goat-kid taking a trip in a livestock trailer and a girl-kid tripping down a ramp.
Activity 1: Making sense of homonyms with guided reading
Before reading, show the book cover for KID & KID to students. Ask questions:
- What do you think will happen in this story?
- What do a human kid and a goat kid have in common?
- What musical instrument is the girl playing?
Show the opening pages of KID & KID. Ask questions:
- What do you notice about “Hey” and “Hay”?
- Ask students where they sleep, and then ask where a goat would sleep.
- Ask if they think the girl-kid and the goat are doing the same thing or something different.
As the book is read aloud, explain homonyms and simple verbs. Ask which words show different actions for the same words like “play,” where the girl plays a musical harmonica while the goat plays in the mud.
Have your students been to their county or state fair? Ask kids what other animals they might see at a fair.
Continue to discusses differences and similarities as you read the story.
Activity 2: Gathering information
Know your goats
NUBIAN
ALPINE
LAMANCHA
TENNESSEE FAINTING
NIGERIAN DWARF
Ask students to choose one of the goats above. Enlist the help of your school or public librarian to find several age-appropriate books about goats. Ask students to find two to five more fun facts about their goat (depending on the age of the student). You may need to enlist the help of parent volunteers to help the children.
Goatscaping—Super heroes for the environment
Goats—and their kids—aren’t just cuddly and cute, they help the environment by eating invasive plants. They happily gobble up plants like poison ivy and poison oak that would be harmful to humans. And when they poop tiny pellets, they are fertilizing the soil with nutrients.
Rent-a-Goat is a popular, environmentally friendly—and fun!—way to mow weeds/grasses.
- It takes four-eight goats to clear an acre of land in a month.
- Renting goats can save landowners $1-3K per acre; instead of using machines or landscapers.
- Lawns can be mowed without burning fossil fuels from a mower.
- Say good-bye harmful chemical herbicides and pesticides.
- Goats help create fire breaks and prevent forest fires by thinning excess vegetation.
Goatscaping also improves biodiversity, restoring native plants by mowing the meadows in a targeted way that helps control invasive plants while allowing native plants and grasses to flourish. This helps return the environment to a natura
Activity 3: Story and illustrations
Ask students to write a story about their chosen goat.
CHALLENGE 1: Can students to use at least one homonym in their story?
CHALLENGE 2: Can students use some goatscaping information in their story?
Ask students to illustrate their stories. Here’s one way to draw a goat: Download art activity with easy step-by-step instructions.
Featured image credit: “goats-babies-2017-10-18 14.48.28-57” by taildashf is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Linda Joy Singleton is the author of over 55 picture books, YA, and MG books. She wrote her first 200-page novel when she was 11 and submitted to magazines at 14 (some nice rejections!). She’s a longtime member of SCBWI and has spoken at many conferences, schools, and libraries. She once owned a trio of goats she named Crystal, Borden, and Knudsen. She lives with her husband in Northern California with a menagerie of animals. Visit Linda’s website for educational activities, writing tips, book news, and free stories at www.LindaJoySingleton.com. Find Linda at www.Facebook.com/LindaJoySingleton and on Instagram, Threads, and Blue Sky under her full name.
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