My daughter’s favorite book when she was little was Are You My Mother? by Dr. Seuss. It is the story of a bird that hatches when its mother is away, and he goes on a journey to find his mother. Young children love the book because of the absurdity of a cow or an airplane being the mother of a bird. My daughter always laughed delightfully as we turned the pages.
Here she is at 4 years old, doing a dramatic reading of the book. She points upward, squeals, and really gets into it!
If you want to do a unit study on Are You My Mother?, you can start by doing some bird watching. Imitate some of the bird sounds. Talk about the characteristics of a bird. A great website for identifying birds is All About Birds. You can set up a bird feeder right outside your window and see which birds show up!
Here is a free lapbook for the book Are You My Mother? You will need some colorful file folders, scissors, crayons, and glue to complete the lapbook with your young child.
You can watch an egg hatch by getting an inexpensive incubator. Borrow an egg from a farmer, and give back the chick after it’s hatched. My children loved this activity so much. They called our chick Pepito and chased it around the backyard.
You can make a cute and easy nest with a paper bag, small twigs, and glue. Scrunch down the bag, pour glue on the outside, and stick the twigs on the bag. I give you a demonstration on how to make this easy craft in my free Easter Ideas video.
You can also make a next with natural materials from outdoors. Here is a blog post describing how:
I hope you enjoyed our Are You My Mother? unit study!
Tags: Dr. Seuss, Early Childhood, reading, video, young children
She reads very good!!! how do you teach your very young girl to read????
Thank you! I thought she was so cute, even though she lost her page. She also reads 3rd grade novels. I ask her if she understands them, and she says, “I don’t know, Mommy!” I told her to stick to picture books.
This is how I taught all my young children how to read: http://susanevans.org/?article=14 . It was super easy, and it only took a few seconds or a few minutes, depending on their age.
Thank you Susan! I already find out how you do it!!! and I want to do it with my litle ones…. thank you very much for all the wonderful ideas you have share with us!!!!
God bless
You’re welcome! Thank you for your words of encouragement.
And yes she is so cute!!!!
Thank you….Yes, she is!
What a fun unit study to accompany Are You My Mother?, one of my family’s favorite books for young children.
This book has always been a favorite for all of my kids!
This is such a cute and fun book. I like your ideas for a unit study. I also loved your trains for The Little Engine that Could!
Thank you. We love doing unit studies around here.
This book was (and still is) a great favorite in our house. At one point we had the words by heart! I love how she enunciates and uses different tones to read her favorite book 🙂 Reminds me of my little one doing that.
My daughter has always loved dramatic reading.
I loved Are You My Mother? when I was a child. What wonderful ideas you have to make it a unit study. I love your idea of having them learn about birds!
My kids have always loved birds, and this is a good way to tie in the study of birds to a picture book.
Such a cute craft!
Thanks! My kids loved it!
I remember that book from when I was a kid…
It’s popular for a reason.
She has great taste! This is one of my favorites too!
I always loved this book, too.