Last week's story was a modern fable. Recall what we mean by a fable. If a fable is a story that has a moral lesson on how to behave and what to do what do you think the messages in this story, named "The Tree" will be? Write the class predictions up on the whiteboard wall.
Look at the front cover. What do you think is going to happen in the fable? What are the two humans doing in front of the tree? What other characters are on the front cover? What might be their role in the fable? What clue is there on the front cover as to what might be going to happen in this story?
Reading and Discussing
Read the story together. Pause occasionally to discuss.
Look closely at the expressions on the faces of the couple as they discover what is in their tree and when they understand what has happened to the nest.
How many animals called the tree home?
What did the couple do, to show us that they cared for the environment?
What did they do to show us that humans and the environment can co-exist?
What message does the author give us about how we should treat the environment?
Discuss the simple text and count how many sentences are in the whole story. Why is the text so simple? What does this tell us about the beliefs of the author?
How effective is this text in getting a very strong message across? Do you need to have a lot of words to get a message across?
Looking Back
Look back at the whiteboard to your predictions about the moral lessons from this fable. Which ones were correct? Now that you have finished reading, what important messages could you add?