The City Mouse and the Country Mouse | Homeschooling

Hello there!

It’s been a long time!

Today, I am excited to share how to teach children English with this very cute story– The City Mouse and the Country Mouse. There’s no need to buy the physical book since there’s a simplified YouTube version by TheFableCottage.com. Here’s the link to their video–https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G7RQxk396A&t=64s.. If you prefer to minimize your child’s screen time, you can read the one written by Richard Scarry. However the words included in this lesson plan may not be the same as the book version. It is noted that I should try to make a separate lesson plan for the book version, soon.

For now, nitty-gritty…

• Word Focus: adjectives (e.g. big-small, enormous-tiny, colors, numbers, etc.)
• Meaning Focus: the good life
• Thinking Focus: imagination and creation

Purpose: For children to imagine the good life and attempt to create it

Autonomy: For children to explore their options in choosing the good life

Progress: For children to have a developing vision of the good life according to their own terms and/or values

I. PRE-READING

I.A. Phonics

(soft c) city, circle, rice, pencil

(hard c) cat, cake, cookies, carrot

I.B. Unlocking Difficult Words 

1. city 
2. country 
3. cat
4. mouse
5. humans
6. cozy 
7. corn 
8. carrot 
9. acorns 
10. a glass of water 
11. theater 
12. museum
13. Chinese food
14. enormous
15. cheese
16. bread 
17. cookies
18. cakes
19. lemonade 
20. a hole in the wall 
21. creep 
22. home 

I.C. Learning Expressions

1. You MUST visit ~. 
2. Have you ever tried ~? 
3. I want to live in~.  

I.D. Experiential Question(s) 

“Where do you want to live?”

3 pictures will be shown to class…

a. a condo in NYC,

b. a log cabin in the middle of a forest; and

c. houses in the suburbs

I want to live in ~? 

I.E. Motivational Question(s) 

“What do each character’s house look like? Where would you like to live?”

II. READING 

(Read Aloud)

III. POST- READING 

III. A. Dream House Show-and-Tell

Students are challenged to imagine and draw their dream house for a show-and-tell activity. The teacher guides the students to visualize that perfect dwelling in their minds. 

I want to live in a ~ house. 

1. city or country
2. enormous or tiny
3. stone or wooden 
4. What shape?
5. What color?
6. How many rooms? 
7. What is near your house? (e.g. a supermarket, a cafe, a church)

This plan may be hard to execute because I really used this lesson plan with my niece and nephew. It makes me question what went wrong but I guess those loopholes are normal.

We will try and try again…

Happy homeschooling!

Asian Santa

April 14, 2025