Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type (Click Clack Book)

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Type your own letter to Farmer Brown, from the cows’ point of view, explaining how they are feeling.

This puts Farmer Brown in a tizzy because every fool knows you can't run a farm with no milk and no aiggs! So he dusts off his own typewriter and bangs out a letter reminding the cows and hens that they are animals and he demands that they produce for him. Farmer Brown will not give in to their demands, so they go on strike and withhold their milk. It's not long before the hens feel the chill in the barn and join the strike. After the reading, draw students' attention to the chart or poster paper with the first note typed by the cows to Farmer Brown asking for electric blankets in the barn. After graduating from Pratt Institute where she studied illustration, Betsy Lewin designed greeting cards. Then she began to write and illustrate stories for children’s magazines. When an editor at Dodd, Mead & Company asked her to expand one of those stories into a picture book, Betsy says, “I jumped at the chance. I’ve been doing picture books ever since and loving every moment.” Another word family in the first note to Farmer Brown is /-ight/. Write the word night on the whiteboard, chalkboard, or magnetic board. Show students how you can remove the n and change it to an r to make the word right. Instead of saying the letters as you change them, you will want to emphasize the sounds the letters make. This will help students know what to do when they come to a word they do not know in a text. Other words in the /-ight/ family are light, might, sight, tight, bright, and flight.

Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type

Look at the cows’ letters. How could they improve their writing? Could they use more exciting vocabulary? Could they use additional punctuation? Investigate persuasive writing… Can you write a more persuasive letter from the cows to Farmer Brown?

You might stop at the place in the book where the farmer reacts to the note that reads, "Sorry. We're closed. No milk today." Talk with students about the farmer's shadow on the wall. What does that mean? What do the cows want? What does it mean to go on strike? Read the book again and show students the chart paper with the second note to Farmer Brown typed by the cows asking for electric blankets for the hens. In Doreen’s latest book, Diary of a Worm, she explores the daily life of a lovable worm. Who knew that the underground dwellings and activities of worms could be so funny? Readers may even find that worm’s life is much the same as theirs except worm eats his homework and his head looks a whole lot like his rear! Look through the story for words that describe different emotions, e.g. impatient, furious. What does each type of emotion feel like? What might make us feel that way? Before reading the story, look at the front cover. What might the cows be typing a letter about? Could you write what it might say?Next, introduce the concept of rime or word families. A rime is the first vowel in a word and all of the letters that follow. In the word dear, the rime or word family is /-ear/. In the word cow, the rime or word family is /-ow/. Students can be taught how to change the beginning sound or letters of a known word family to make a new word.