Book 9: Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse

Standards:

K-4.1 Identify qualities of good citizenship, including honesty, courage, determination, individual responsibility, and patriotism.

K-4.2 Demonstrate good citizenship in classroom behaviors, including taking personal responsibility, cooperating and respecting others, taking turns and sharing, and working with others to solve problems.

Summary:

Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse is a story of a mouse named Alexander. He lives in a home where when he tries to get food from the kitchen he gets scared away with a broom. One day Alexander meets another mouse in the house. This mouse is not like him, it is a wind-up mouse that cannot move unless he is wound-up but people love him and he gets attention and hugs and kisses every day. Alexander makes friends with the wind-up mouse but finds himself to be a little bit jealous of him because everyone likes him. Alexander had heard that there is a lizard in the woods that can turn an animal into any other animal that he wants. The lizard says that in order to change he must find a purple stone. When looking for the stone, Alexander finds the wind-up mouse in a box and asks him what he is doing there. He says that the little girl he belonged to got some new toys and he will be thrown away. Alexander then finally finds the purple pebble and brings it to the lizard. Instead of changing himself like he had originally wanted, he changed the wind-up mouse into a real mouse so that he will not be thrown away and will be happy.

Objective:

The student will demonstrate what it means to be a good citizen by describing something that they have done for someone else to be a good helper of their community.

Materials:

Book Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse by Leo Lionni

Paper

Markers

Crayons

Pencils

Procedure:
1. The teacher will read the book Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse to the students in the class and point out where Alexander gives up his dream to make the Wind-Up mouse happy.
2. The teacher will talk about the book with the students and ask them if they know how Alexander was a good citizen of his community.
3. The teacher will talk to the students about how Alexander was a good team play and community member because he gave up something that he wanted for someone else.
4. The teacher will talk to the children about how sometimes we do things even if we don’t want to do them to help others.
5. The teacher will talk to the children about times when they have done things that they might not have wanted to such as help pick up, or set the table, or do homework, or brush their teeth.
6. The teacher will have the students go to their desks and will ask them to write a sentence about a time when they did something for someone that they did not want to do but that they felt great after they did it because they were being good community members and helping someone else out in their family or classroom or community.
7. Once the students are finished the teacher will call them to the circle where they will present their drawings and read their sentence and explain to the students why what they did demonstrates them being a good participant of their community or home.