How can I get my toddler invested and interested in reading? Using these great toddler books is a start! Lift-the-flap books are interactive books that kids can physically lift to reveal a hidden picture or text underneath. Toddlers often have short attention spans and making them sit down and read can be an extra big challenge, but these lift-the-flap books help bring the story to life!
Lift-the-flap books will engage your child in a new and interesting way they are not used to seeing in a traditional book. Lift-the-flap books invite your kids into the reading journey, requiring them to interact with the text as you read. These great toddler books will not only pique your child’s curiosity, but they also touch on many literacy skills . Your little one will love peeking under each flap!
In this post, you’ll find four literacy activities for one of the great toddler books, Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell. The activities are designed to be easy, fun, and an introduction to literacy skills that are age appropriate for toddlers. The four skills that this post will focus on are: inference, main idea, key details, and a bonus expansion activity. Dear Zoo has zoo animals that pop right off the page and into your home. This book will have your and your child wondering, giggling, and learning, three core foundations of My Book Bud.
Table of Contents
Dear Zoo
Author and Illustrator: Rod Campbell
Published by Macmillan Children’s Books, 1982
Summary: A pet from the zoo? That’s wild! The narrator repeatedly writes to the zoo requesting a pet, but each animal is sent back. Peek under the flaps to discover why the animals are returned until the perfect pet is finally found.
Skills to Tackle with Great Toddler Books (Dear Zoo):
Inference: Best for ages 2.5–5 years
An inference is an educated guess using background knowledge and text evidence to identify something the author did not directly state.
We make inferences all the time in our daily lives, making it a necessary skill to learn.
Inference Example:
If you tell your child to go get changed and they come down the stairs in a wrinkly and smelly shirt, you could make the inference that they picked something out of the dirty laundry.
They didn’t have to tell you they did, you used the evidence in front of you and what you know about your child’s clothes to make the inference.
When reading great toddler books, you will be able to identify and make inferences with your child in a way that is not intimidating and is suitable for their age.
Inference with Dear Zoo
The zoo sends the narrator several animals that could never be kept as pets, such as an elephant and a snake. The narrator describes these animals as “too big” or “too scary,” and sends them back.
Help your child make inferences about why each animal is not an inappropriate pet by focusing on the adjectives used to describe them.
Example Conversation:
- Parent: Why isn’t the elephant a good pet? It says he is too big. But our doggy is big. Why can he be our pet and not an elephant?
- The goal is to help them visualize exactly how big an elephant really is.
- Child: An elephant is so big it couldn’t even fit in the house! Our doggy is big, but at least he fits in the house!
- Parent: So true! On this page, it says the snake is too scary. Roller coasters are scary. Is a snake scary like that?
- Child: Well, I guess there are different kinds of scary. A snake is scary because it is dangerous and could bite you and hurt you. A roller coaster is scary because it makes your heart pound.
Repeat this activity with all the animals in the book.
This activity was a bit of a challenge for my own kiddos, as it really requires a lot of background knowledge about each animal. When I asked my oldest about the camel being grumpy, she said that he probably woke up on the wrong side of the bed! I laughed out loud because I say this when I’m grumpy, but then I realized she didn’t know much about camels. I had to explain to her that camels are known for being unfriendly and often spit on people! I did have to do a ton of prompting throughout this entire activity. At points, I made the inference so we could work backwards and unpack it together.
Don’t get discouraged if your child can’t do the activity independently. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to do something together.
Free Printable!
Use the free printable linked below to match the animals to the household items! Cut out the animals and household items. Match the animals to the household items they could BEST hide inside or behind without being seen.
Main Idea: Best for ages 4-6
The main idea is what the story is mostly about. Main idea and summary are often confused. Summaries include the main idea as well as key details to support the main idea, whereas the main idea is just the main point of the text.
Using great toddler books you know your child will be asking to read again and again are the best way to introduce a new skill like this.
SWBST:
A quick and easy way to identify the main idea is to use this acronym:
SWBST (Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then). Let’s break this down:
- Somebody is the main character
- Wanted is conflict or problem
- But is what is working against the problem
- So is how the characters try solving the problem
- Then is the resolution of the problem.
Main Idea with Dear Zoo:
Using Dear Zoo, the main idea could look like this:
- (Somebody) The narrator
- (Wanted) a pet from the zoo,
- (But) they kept sending animals that were inappropriate,
- (So) the animals were sent back.
- (Then), the zoo finally sent the perfect one.
Without the prompts it would read like this: The narrator wanted a pet from the zoo, but they kept sending animals that were inappropriate, so the animals were sent back. Then, the zoo finally sent the perfect one.
This main idea sentence sums up the entire essence of the text without adding the details of every animal. You and your child can do this without you having to use that scary acronym with them. Through simple and informal conversation, you can get to the bottom of the main idea. Prompt your child to develop a main idea sentence using SWBST!
Example Conversation:
- Parent: Who is this story mostly about?
- You are promoting your child to answer the “somebody” part of the acronym. Provide some leeway here as the reader is not actually introduced to the narrator of the story. We don’t know if it’s a boy or girl. So if your child says a little boy or girl, accept that as it is not entirely wrong. If your child is struggling, introduce them to the term narrator which is the character telling the story.
- Child: I think a little boy is writing to the zoo!
- Parent: What does he want?
- You are prompting your child to think about the conflict and to answer the “want” part of the acronym.
- Child: He wanted the zoo to send him an animal.
- Parent: But what was wrong?
- You are prompting your child to think about what is working against the conflict and to answer the “but” part of the acronym.
- Child: The zoo kept sending him animals that could never be pets!
- Parent: So, what did he do with those animals?
- You are prompting your child to think about how the character tried to solve the conflict and to answer the “so” part of the acronym.
- Child: He sent them back to the zoo!
- Parent: Then, what happened after he sent them all back?
- You are prompting your child to think about how the conflict was resolved and to answer the “then” part of the acronym.
- Child: The zoo finally sent him a puppy which he loved. He decided to keep it!
Through this super informal conversation, you and your child can develop the main idea of the story.
Try a SWBST conversation with several movies your child loves. Doing this can help you both understand how to weed out the unnecessary details and to think about the most important things in each movie.
Key Details with Dear Zoo: Best for ages 4-6
Key details are those that support the main idea of the text which can then fit into a longer summary of the story.
Using great toddler books is the best way to look for and identify the main idea and key details without overwhelming your child. After crafting a main idea together, discuss the important details from the text that support it.
When thinking about ways to support the main idea, do not include every single minor detail of the story. It is pivotal that the key details support the main idea. In Dear Zoo, it is not important that the elephant is in a crate and that the snake is in a basket. What is important is that all of the animals were sent to the narrator, deemed an inappropriate pet, and then sent back to the zoo.
Example Conversation:
- Parent: So let me get this right, a little boy wanted a pet from the zoo, but they kept sending him animals that could never be pets, so he sent them back. Then they finally sent him the perfect pet? But, what animals did they send him and why were they sent back?
- Be sure to repeat the main idea as stated above so that your child can easily think about how to add important key details to it. The follow up questions will help your child zero in on the most important details.
- Child: Well, first he gets an elephant, but it’s too big. Then he gets a giraffe, but it’s too tall. Then a lion, but it’s too fierce. The camel is too grumpy. The snake is too scary. The monkey is too naughty and the frog is too jumpy. Finally, they send him a puppy and it’s perfect!
These key details give the main idea the support it needs without repeating the whole story verbatim. They simply support the reason why the animals were sent back to the zoo each time. Allow your child to use the text when answer your questions! Using the text is a skill that is super important in literacy. Remember, this is not a test and it is not cheating if they use the text! Encourage them to use the resources in front of them!
Expansion Activity: Best for ages 2-6
This book always cracks me up because, aside from the fact that the narrator is writing to the zoo for some ridiculous reason, he or she continues to write to the zoo despite the fact that the zoo keeps sending inappropriate pet animals. So much of this confusion could have been solved with just a little bit of communication.
Ask your child, “How could the zoo know what the narrator is looking for if he or she never describes the perfect pet to them? Of course they are going to keep sending animals he or she doesn’t want because they don’t have any information, so let’s fix this!” Ultimately, the narrator wants a puppy. He or she could have added a description of a puppy in his or her letter to make that clear! Then ask your child to describe a puppy. Try to get your child to use at least 4-5 adjectives to describe a puppy. Depending on your child’s age, this can be done through super informal conversation or written in actual letter format.
Take it a Step Further:
Tell your child to think about their “dream” pet! If they could pick any animal in the world, what would it be? Then, pretend like you are the zoo, and they are writing to you and requesting that animal as a pet. It may look or sound something like this “Dear Zoo, the animal I want is long, green, and scaly. It has big, sharp teeth. It swims in water, but it also crawls on land.” You would then have to guess that your child is requesting an alligator.
You can then change it up by having your child pretend to be the zoo and you give the clues. Again, this can be adapted to your child’s age by doing this verbally or in a hand-written letter. You never know what they might say. They may have you cracking up with laughter which is the ultimate goal!
To Wrap Things Up:
Reading great toddler books like lift-the-flap books is such an incredible way to bond with your child. Your kid will never look at reading the same. So go ahead and lift-that-flap! You’ll fall in love with them all over again watching them fall in love with reading.
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