By Eric Carle

Grades 1-2

This is a story about a rooster who goes on a journey to see the world. Along the way he is joined by two cats. three frogs, four turtles, and five fish. The animals all travel together for awhile, but then one by one each animal leaves the rooster to go back to his home. In the end, the rooster is all alone and homesick, so he decides to go back home without seeing the world.

Lesson Plan Ideas

This book is a perfect way to introduce and reinforce addition and subtraction to children. The illustrations allow the student to visually see addition and subtraction symbols because the illustrated animals are added and subtracted as the story goes on.

After reading the story, give each student cut outs of the two cats, three frogs, four turtles, and five fish on a big piece of white construction paper. Have the students practice adding the animals together and then taking some away. Give each student time to practice this on their own piece of paper making many different animal equations. After you feel the student has a basic grasp of adding and subtracting the animals, instruct them to construct their own ending of Rooster's Off to See the World. Allow the students to glue down the animals in any order they choose making many different equations throughout the class. After the students have glued their animal equations on their own piece of paper, have them try and write the equation under the animals. Then use some of the new equations the students have made to read the story again, making the ending different each time.

Another lesson plan idea after reading the story would be to write each different addition and subtraction equation from the book on the board. Ask for the students to guess which part of the book the equation goes with. Try mixing the order of the numbers to add difficulty if the students seem to have a good grasp of adding and subtracting. This activity would be beneficial to use before or after the cut out activity above. There are countless acitvites that could be used with this book. It is wonderful for students who need to work on adding and subtraction and allows for many creative projects!