Finklehopper Frog by Irene Livingston

Genre: General Fiction

Publishing Information: Scholastic INC., 36 pages

Summary: Finklehopper Frog is a rhyming story about a frog who wants to jog like everyone else. He went to the store and bought a special jogging suit. When he went out jogging he found out that everyone else didn't like his jogging suit as much as he did. They started making fun of him for his suit and the way he was hopping around. Ruby Rabbit came along and said that he shouldn't feel bad because frogs hop. Finkle came to realize that everyone has their own special things to do and be.

Reading level: 2.9

Interest level: K-2

Integration: This would be a great book to use in a poetry unit. The teacher could read this book and talk about how there are all different types of poetry. This is narrative poetry because it tells a story. After reading this book and discusses it the teacher could have the kids write their own narrative poem about something.
This book could also be used to discuss how everything is different and how we shouldn't make fun of someone just because they are different.
To get the children moving you can have the children jog like the other animals. Then have them hop like Finkle. After that they could come up with other ways the animals move and have them act that out.

Potential Problems: The only problem that I see is this book has some hard words like Finklehopper that are not regular. It is a rhyming book and if a child is having trouble reading fluently they may have trouble with it.