1. Anonymous Becky Miles’ Poem Lesson
“The Squirrel”
Anonymous
Becky Miles’ Poem Lesson

2. Whisky Frisky, Hippity Hop, Up he goes To the tree top
Whisky Frisky, Hippity Hop, Up he goes To the tree top! Whirly, Twirly, Round and round Down he scampers To the ground
Furly, Curly
What a tail!
Tall as a feather
Broad as a snail!
Where’s his supper?
In the shell,
Snappity, crackity
Out it fell!

3. Day 1 Thinking Critically
What is a squirrel?
What do squirrels like to do?
Where can you find a squirrel?
What are some words that describe squirrels and what they do?

4. Day 2 Exploring Language
Some of the difficult words in the poem: scampers, whisky, whirly, broad, furly
For this day, the students can play a game of charades with the words from the poem. Some of the words that they could act out would be: whirly, twirly, scamper, round and round, hippity, hop, up, tree, fell.
Another activity would be to play vocabulary Pictionary in group of four. One student draws a card and the other students need to try and guess the word they are drawing. This poem works well for this because there are a lot of descriptive words including: ground, tree, snail, tall, feather, round, shell, tail, up, and down.

5. Day 3 Exploring Language
We will talk about the punctuation in the poem. (Ex. question marks, exclamation points, commas)
The students can write the poem in the form that the poem takes shape of. They could write it twirling on the page or in the shape of a tree. They will use the words to help determine what shape to create. See next slide for an example.

7. Day 4 Exploring Language
Consonant blends
Broad, crackity, frisky, ground, tree, scampers, frisky, whisky, snail, snappity, shell, the, feather, what, where, whisky, whirly, crackity, squirrel
Vowels
Long a- a, tail, snail,
Short a- what, and, tall, as, snappity, crackity,
Short i- whisky, hippity, frisky, whirly, twirly, his, in, it
Long o- goes,
Short o- to, top, broad, out

8. Vowel combinations R, L, W Controlled Vowels Syllables
Tail, snail, feather, tree, broad, goes, round, ground, out, squirrel
R, L, W Controlled Vowels
Feather, where, supper, scamper, squirrel, whirly, twirly, furly, curly, down
Syllables
1 syllable- hop, up, he, goes, to, the, tree, top, round, and, down, ground, what, a, tail, tall, as, broad, snail, his, where’s, in, the , shell, out, it, fell
2 syllables- whisky, frisky, whirly, twirly, scampers, furly, curly, feather, supper,
3 syllables- hippity, snappity, crackity,

9. Prefixes/suffixes Plurals Contractions Compound words Silent letters
Whirly, twirly, furly, curly; feather, scamper, supper; whisky, whirly, what, where
Plurals
(N/A)
Contractions
Where’s
Compound words
Silent letters
Crackity, goes, feather, supper
Sight words
The, and, a, in, it, he, as, his, what, up, out, down

10. Day 5 Processing Information
Today, we will sing the poem. It goes to the tune of “Wags the Dog.”
Once the students learn the song, they can add actions where the poem describes what is happening.
Scampering, whirly, twirly, down, up, hop, round and round, down to the ground, tail, tall, broad, fell