Mud feels good!

Students will listen to Mud Walk by Joy Cowley. Students will experience and describe mud using a bubble map to record their responses. Students will create a class book using chocolate pudding to imitate mud.

A lesson plan for grade K English Language Arts and Science

By Amanda Mcalpine, Carol Elliott, and Ginny Devine

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Related topics

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• Learn that mud is squishy, wet, and messy.
• Learn that in order to have mud outside we must have rain.
• Observe what happens to dirt when water is added and mixed together.
• Apply their inventive spelling skills to write the name of the farm animal of their choice.
• Draw or select a farm animal from clip art to match their writing. All papers will be bound into a class book.
• Identify cows, pigs and ducks.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

3 days

Materials/resources

• Mud Walk by Joy Cowley
• water
• dirt
• bucket
• towels
• farm animal clip-art: cow, pig, and duck
• large Bubble Map from Thinking Maps (draw on large chart paper)
• teacher-created worksheet
• crayons
• pencils
• glue
• large Story Map
• KWL Chart — Know, Want to Know, Learned
• individual snack-size chocolate pudding

Pre-activities

In a shared reading lesson, the children will state what they know about mud. Together the class will begin the “Know” section of the K-W-L chart. Read Mud Walk by Joy Cowley discussing parts of the book and predicting events as the story is read aloud.

Activities

Day 1

1. Discuss the children’s prior experiences with mud and what it feels like. Read Mud Walk by Joy Cowley.
2. Follow up activity: have the children name the characters, setting, problem and solution to complete a story map.

Day 2

1. Reread Mud Walk. Students will discuss how the animals said the mud felt. The class discusses how the mud was created filling in the “want to know section of the K-W-L chart.” What mixed with what? What kind of weather had to have happened for there to be mud?
2. Follow up activity: students complete the teacher made worksheet that reads “The _____ is in the mud.” Students pick a farm animal and either draw the farm animal or choose pre-copied and cut out clip art piece and place it on their worksheet. Once they have there animal selected and applied it to the worksheet, they use chocolate pudding to cover their farm animal to imitate the mud. Students then write the name of the farm animal they selected using inventive spelling. Students take turns reading their work to the class. All the worksheets are bound together to complete the class book. The book will be displayed in the library center.

Day 3

1. Reread the story. Have a chart size bubble map ready on board. Have a large bucket of dirt and pail of water. Begin by quizzing children on how to make mud. Then the teacher adds water to the dirt and mixes the two together with hands or large spoon. The children are then invited up one at a time to feel the mud and tell how it feels. As the students feel the mud they provide an adjective to write on the bubble map. We only chose 7–8 children during the lesson, and later in the day we let the rest of the class feel the mud. Complete the last section of the KWL chart on what they learned about mud.

Assessment

Students will:

1. Write the beginning and ending sounds of the animal they have chosen.
2. Give an adjective to tell how mud feels.
3. Name what is needed to create mud.

Supplemental information

Worksheet for use during the lesson.

Comments

We also enjoyed acting out the story. We ordered animal masks from Oriental Trading Company. But you could easily make them out of poster board. We use a large sheet of brown cloth for the mud and laid it near the acting area. We have red slippers, an apron, and a wig to dress up as Mrs. Wishy Washy. If you are looking for ideas on retelling, I made a set of picture cards from the book with out the words. I have students put the pictures in order to assess their retelling ability.