Week 1 Lesson 5
Storybook of the Week
If I Were King
by A.A. Milne
Book Activities
Before Reading: Discuss the title, If I Were King. Ask your child to predict what they think the poem will be about. Ask: What would you do if you were king for one day?
Read If I Were King.
Comprehension
Ask:
· What is this poem about?
· What are some places mentioned in the poem?
· What are some things the character wants to do?
· Why do you think the character wants to be king? Discuss.
Word Study:
1. Examine the features of this poem. Point out that:
Each idea covers two lines
Capital letters begin each word in the title, and the first word in each line, regardless of whether it is the beginning of a sentence or not.
Pairs of lines are similar in length, and
Rhyming words occur at the end of each line.
2. Read the last word in each line to emphasise the rhyming words.
3. Look for known phoneme digraphs, such as ‘ng’, ‘ai’, ‘ee’, ‘or’ and ‘sh’. Look for the tricky words ‘were’, ‘my’, ‘to’, ‘the’, ‘do’, ‘I’ and ‘a’.
4. Locate some sentences by finding end punctuation marks (remember, poems have capital letters to begin each line, so capital letters will not only occur at the beginning of sentences). Point out the paragraph spaces that separate each couplet of writing. Punctuation instructions for commas have not been taught yet, but you can point out the comma and say, “This is a comma. It lets us know that we need to pause when reading, but it is not the end of the sentence”.
Vocabulary
Choose 3 interesting words from the poem, and clap the syllables in those words. Discuss the meanings of the chosen words. Put the words into oral sentences. Suggested words include: often, mantlepiece, undone, anything and/or lovely.
Connecting With the Text
We are focusing on poetry. If I Were King is a poem about a boy who doesn’t want to be told what to do. He thinks that if he was king, he could do anything he wanted. The poem is made up of eight rhyming couplets. The first line in each couplet is about the boy imagining he is king of different places, and the second line tells us what he would do. Think of a place that you would like to be king/Queen of. Then, think of a rhyming word to go with that place. Experiment with different lines until you come up with a rhyming couplet. Write your rhyming couplet down, and draw a picture. Remember to sound out words and use your Aussie Readers dictionary to help you spell tricky words. Examples might be:
· If I Were Queen of the beach,
I’d have a feast with peach.
· If I Were King of Japan,
I’d sit right in front of the fan.
· If I Were King of Chile,
I’d be loud and silly.
Encourage your child to have a go at sounding out words. If the words are difficult, write the tricky parts of them. For example, the red letters and words above would be written for your child.
