A Summery Saturday Morning by Margaret Mahy

Prompts and vocabulary

Prompts

Ask the child questions after the second and third readings of A Summery Saturday Morning, to start a conversation about the book. You can prompt the child on every one or two pages using the questions below. If the child says something spontaneously about a picture, be sure to expand on it and listen while he or she repeats it.

1. Which people are going on the walk? (The woman and four children are going on the walk.)
2. Who else is going on the walk? (A black dog and a white dog are going on the walk, too.)
3. What is happening in this picture? (The two dogs are chasing the cat.)
4. What are the dogs doing now? (They are chasing a boy who is on his bike.)
5. What is the boy wearing on his feet? (He is wearing boots.)
6. What does he have in the basket of his bike? (He has a toy boat.)
7. What is everybody looking at? (They are looking at the sea below them.)
8. What can you see in the picture? (You can see boats, a pier, hills, and birds.)
9. What is this? (This is a goose.)
10. Who is walking with the big white goose? (The big white goose is walking with her baby geese.)
11. How many baby geese are there? Let's count them together. (There are seven.)
12. What is happening here? (The two dogs are chasing the geese. The people are running after the dogs.)
13. What do the woman and the children want to catch? (They want to catch the dogs.)
14. What happens to the people? (They all get stuck in the mud.)
15. What are the geese doing in this picture? (They are flapping their wings and hissing at the dogs.)
16. Can you make a hissing sound like a goose?
17. What is happening here? (The geese are chasing the people.)
18. What is the woman carrying? (She is carrying the fat white dog.)
19. How is the black dog walking? (He is on a leash.)
20. Can the dogs chase the geese now? (No, they can't.)

Vocabulary

The words listed below come from the story and its pictures. As you page through the book, point to the pictures and ask the child to name the object or the action shown. This will help the child learn new words. You can use the words below, or you can choose words you think will interest your child. Below are words for every one or two pages of the story.

• black dog, white dog, girls, boys, lady, horn, toy elephant
• chasing, cat, fence
• bicycle, basket, boots, sailboat
• water, hills, boats
• goose, grass, beak
• mother goose, baby geese, webbed feet
• running, wings, tongue
• hat, sandals
• mud, slipping and sliding
• flapping, hissing
• chasing, going home
• leash, carrying, muddy