Mammalabilia

1. Challenge your students to become mammal experts!
2. Using your school or classroom library or computer center, ask students to create a list of facts about mammals.
3. Have them note the differences between mammals and insects and reptiles, listing specific characteristics for each.
4. Discuss each student's notes as a class and create a master list on your blackboard.
5. If possible, leave the master list in place while reading and studying Mammalabilia.

1. Read Mammalabilia aloud to your class.
2. After each poem, share the author's illustration with your students.
3. Ask students to think about the ways in which the author/illustrator reflects his words in his illustration.
4. Have students mention specific examples from each illustration.
5. Ask students to think about how they might have described each mammal. How would their description be similar to the author's? How would it be different?

My Favorite Mammal

1. Ask each student to pick his or her favorite mammal.
2. Have students do a bit of research to learn (or confirm) facts about that mammal.
3. Ask students to write poems about their favorite mammals, incorporating factual information. Encourage students to be as humorous as possible.
4. Stage a poetry reading in which each child reads his or her poem aloud to the class.
5. Post poems on your classroom bulletin board.

1. Author/illustrator Douglas Florian has a unique and distinctive style. Celebrate that style and explore each student's perspective by asking each student to choose his or her favorite poem.
2. Have students copy their chosen poems onto a sheet of paper.
3. Ask your class to think about how they might have described the mammal in question.
4. Using Florian's poems as a guide, have students revise their chosen poems in their own words, presenting their own visions of the mammals.
5. One by one, ask each student to read only his or her version aloud to the class and have classmates guess which poem has been revised.

1. Create a list of words taken from Mammalabilia or another poetry book, or simply invent a list.
2. Write the list of words on your blackboard.
3. Using an egg timer or stopwatch, challenge your class to a rhyming race.
4. When you give the signal, ask each student to come up with at least one word that rhymes with each of the words you've listed on the blackboard.
5. When the allotted time is up, compare and contrast the words your students have come up with. You may want to award a small prize (a book of poetry, stickers, a fun pencil) to the student who comes up with the most rhymes.