Milly and Tilly by Kate Summers

Prompts
Use the following questions after the second or third reading of Milly and Tilly. There are questions for every one or two pages of the story.

1. Who is this? (This is Milly, the mouse who lives in the country.)
2. Have you ever been to the country? What did you see there?
3. What do you see here? (This is the big tree where Milly lives.)
4. Can you point to the door of her house?
5. What is Milly doing in these pictures? (She is making her little bed and cleaning her house.)
6. What does Milly eat? (She eats grain, cherries, nuts, and plants.)
7. What is happening here? (Milly is getting a letter from her friend Tilly.)
8. Have you ever received or sent a letter? What did it say?
9. Who is this mouse? (This is Tilly, the mouse who lives in town.)
10. What is happening in these pictures? (Milly is preparing supper for Tilly. They eat soup, chestnuts, cherry turnovers, bread, cake, dumplings, and pie.)
11. Where do the two mice sleep? (Tilly sleeps in Milly's bed, and Milly sleeps in the chair in the living room.)
12. Did Tilly sleep well? (No, it was too quiet in the country for her.)
13. What is happening in these pictures? (The two mice have gone to the meadow where Tilly is frightened first by a bee and then by a sheep.)
14. What happens next? (Tilly wants to go home and she wants Milly to come with her.)
15. Where does Tilly live? (She lives in a dollhouse.)
16. What does Milly like best in the dollhouse? (She likes the stove, because it has knobs that turn on and off.)
17. Do the mice cook their food in the kitchen of the dollhouse? (No, they go to the kitchen in the house.)
18. What kinds of food do the mice find to eat? (They find cookies, cupcakes, pie, jelly, and cheese.)
19. Do they get to eat all this delicious food? (No, they don't eat, because the cat comes into the kitchen.)
20. What is happening in these pictures? (The cat chases the two mice back to the dollhouse.)
21. What happens at the end of the story? (Milly goes back to her home in the country and Tilly stays in her home in town.)

Vocabulary

The words listed below come from the story and its pictures. As you page through the book, ask children to name the objects listed or talk about the actions portrayed. Words are listed for every two pages of story. Ask about other objects and actions shown in the pictures as you see fit

• mouse, grain, basket
• lane, meadow, tree roots, door
• bed, quilt, chair, pillow, cleaning
• grain, cherries, nuts
• mailmouse, letter
• clock, visiting, kissing, snail
• soup, bread, cake, dumplings, pie
• talking, sleeping, awake
• flowers, bee, buzzing, sheep
• going home, walking, town
• hole, carpeting, dollhouse
• bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, stove
• featherbed, dressing table, book shelf
• cookies, cupcakes, cheese, jelly, cat, claws
• crying, running away
• saying "good-bye"

Excerpted from Read Together, Talk Together, the Pearson Early Childhood research-based program that makes reading aloud even more effective!