Z Is For Moose

WHO…?

Author: Kelly Bingham

Kelly Bingham started her career as a storyboard artist in animation. As an employee at Walt Disney Feature Animation she has worked on many famous movies (Atlantis, Hercules, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Tarzan)
She has acquired an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College and is now retired from animation, writing full time.

Illustrator: Paul Zelinsky

Zelinsky went to graduate school at the Tyler School of Art. He made his first illustrations for a childrens’ book in 1978 (Emily Upham’s Revenge).
In 1998, he won the Caldecott Medal for his illustrated retelling of Rapunzel and also holds three Caldecott Honors (for Hansel and Gretel (1985), Rumpelstiltskin (1987), and Swamp Angel (1995)).
His most famous illustrated book “The Wheels on the Bus” has sold millions of copies.

WHAT…?

In “Z Is For Moose”, for every letter of the alphabet, an animal or an object comes onstage.
The moose is very impatient and wants to come on stage as well. When it’s supposed to be his turn, the mouse takes the stage instead, which makes Moose very upset. In the end, he gets to go onstage after all and is happy again.

WHY…?

Illustrations:
The illustrations are bright and colourful, which is motivating especially for young learners. The illustrations and the text complement each other, which further helps to follow the story.
Story:
While being a fun story which is enjoyable for children, it also addresses the relatable topic of impatience.

Language learning:
The pupils learn the letters of the alphabet in English through the illustrated story. As the story contains a lot of different words which are easy and therefore fit the learners’ language level, they repeat and train these words through working with the story.
In a cross-curricular teaching sequence, the difference of how to say the English and the German alphabet and the different phonemes of the two languages can be addressed.

Social learning:
Seeing moose get his turn at the end of the show and that it can be rewarding to be patient teaches the children important social skills such as being aware of each others’ feelings, learning to wait their turn and cooperating with their classmates.

HOW…?

Adaptions:
Some objects should be changed since they are either too difficult or hard to relate to. Furthermore, some of the pages should be skipped as they could lead to misunderstandings and are hard to digitalise.

Pre-reading activities (1 lesson):

• the students arrange ABC picture cards in the correct order
• introduction of the ABC-Song
• later, this song can be sung in different variations (faster, slower, louder, etc.)
• prediction: front/back cover (What do you see; focus on title)

While-reading activities (1 lesson):

• predictions: what is going to happen next?
• teacher shows the digital story once again
• known words: film just shows the pictures, children tell the words
• unknown words: film shows the pictures and tells the word
• echoing
• students have to find matching letters and pictures from the book
• worksheet

Post-reading activities (2 lessons):

• summarising the story of the book with the pupils and the help of its cover
• repetition: domino (an animal on one side a letter of the alphabet on the other side )
• classroom discussion: different central questions like “Why do you think did the
  zebra decide to replace the moose with the mouse?“
• Roleplay: the children get different roles and act on stage, differentiation can be done through the different roles
• costumes
• feedback (thumbs up/thumbs down)

by Ann-Kathrin Kölle, Kaj Mütschele & Luisa Ortmann

edited by K. Mück