A feathery humorous tale, Mopoke by Philip Bunting is a fun book to share with one or many children (and adults).
As I read this story with my two children we laughed at the antics of the mopoke and were surprised by what the Mopoke got up to!
Mopoke explores playing with words, rhyme and adjectives. It also explores what a mopoke is, where is lives and is nightly antics. (I mean, do we really know what they get up to when we are asleep?)
Awareness of birds in our environment is important, especially for those of us who live in large cities and never hear a large variety of bird song. Our family has been lucky enough to have a resident mopoke and on those still, quiet nights we have heard the mopoke call “mo-poke” much to the amusement of my children!
Mopokes are known for their love of peace and quiet and perhaps the mopoke in this story challenges that notion – but as the smallest owl in Australia, Philip Bunting’s creation of wonder is fantastic.
Mopoke links text to pictures so even the smallest reader has a clear understanding of the words being played with.
Buy Mopoke Here
So how does this link to literacy and conservation?
Literacy
- Create a new page in the story with another word that rhymes with ‘mo’. Could it be a flow poke? Low poke? know poke? row poke?
- Explore rhyme with other animals whose names can be broken into two syllables.
- Inferencing –
- How did the mopoke change him or herself with each page turn?
- Where did the mopoke go?
- Why is it always night time in the story?
- Create
- Create a story about the wombat – how did he come to be in that tree?
- Create a story similar to ‘Mopoke’ using another Australian animal that could become ten different persona’s. (Emu = She mu, He mu, Wee me, See mu, Tree me, be mu, tea mu, chi mu, key mu)
Conservation
– The mopoke or Southern Boobook owl has large numbers in it’s population but with increasing cats on the loose at night and urban sprawl most bird numbers will diminish or move further away. Explore how you can make your garden more bird friendly
– Explore birds which are endangered in Australia and how scientists and conservationists are helping to save them.
– Explore more about mopokes – where do they live, what do they eat, what do they do etc.
– Researrch about other Australian owls and their habitats, eating habits and daily life.
