A Sick Day for Amos McGee

 Stead, P. (2010). A Sick Day for Amos McGee. New York: Roaring Brook Press.
Written by: Philip C. Stead
Award: Caldecott Medal
Genre: Fiction
Theme: Friendship
Subject Area: Social Science

Summary: Amos McGee is a zoo keeper. He does something special each day with each animal, until one day Amos gets sick. The animals miss him terribly, so they make accommodations to visit Amos at his house. Amos feels better from the help of his friends!

Initiating Questions and Activity:

1. Who is on the cover?
2. Why are there zoo animals in a house?
3. Have you ever seen an animal play cards?
4. Do you have any pets that play games? If so what kind of games?

Activity:
Take a picture walk through the story. After the picture walk, have the children write down what they think will happen in the story. Have them share their ideas with the class. Bring all the student's ideas together and write them on the board. Keep these up until the end of the story.

Extending Questions and Activity:

1. Why didn't Amos go to work?
2. Have you ever had to miss anything for being sick?
3. How do you cheer your friends up when they're not feeling well?
4. Where you surprised at what the animals did? 
5. How do you think the animals made Amos feel?

Activity:
With the class make a large Venn-Diagram on the board. In the first circle write what you thought was going to happen just by doing a picture walk, in the next circle write what happened, and in the middle write the similarities between what you thought was going to happen and what actually happened. Then discuss with the class how they knew what was going to happen just by looking at the pictures and/or why they thought something was going to happen that didn't actually happen just by looking at the pictures.