A Pocket for Corduroy by Don Freeman

Prompts
Use the following questions after the second or third reading of A Pocket for Corduroy. There are questions for every one or two pages of the story.

1. What is happening in this picture? (Lisa and her mother are going to the laundromat.)
2. Have you ever been to a laundromat? What do people do there?
3. What is Lisa carrying? (She is carrying a stuffed bear named Corduroy.)
4. What are the machines on the wall called? (They are called dryers.)
5. Where does Lisa put Corduroy? (She puts him in a chair.)
6. What is Lisa's mother doing? (She is putting clothes into the washing machine.)
7. What is Corduroy doing in this picture? (He is getting off his chair and going to search for something to make a pocket out of.)
8. What could Corduroy make a pocket out of?
9. What does Corduroy see? (He sees towels and a laundry bag full of clothes.)
10. Where is Corduroy? (He is inside the laundry bag.)
11. What is happening here? (The man is putting Corduroy into the dryer.)
12. How do you know that the man's clothes are still wet? (Water is dripping off them.)
13. Why does the man take off Corduroy's overalls? (They are wet and he wants to put them in the dryer for him.)
14. What is the man holding? (He has a pencil and a pad of paper.)
15. Why does Corduroy stay at the laundromat? (Lisa has lost him and the man doesn't want to take something that doesn't belong to him.)
16. What does Corduroy play with? (He plays with the soap.)
17. What is happening here? (Corduroy tips over the box of soap and slides down into the cart.)
18. What does Corduroy think the soap is? (He thinks it is snow.)
19. What does Corduroy think the laundry basket is? (He thinks it is a cage.)
20. Why has Lisa come back to the laundromat? (She has come to find Corduroy.)
21. How does Lisa feel now? (She is happy to have found Corduroy.)
22. Have you ever lost something and then found it? How did you feel?
23. What happens at the end of the story? (Lisa makes a pocket for Corduroy and puts a card with his name on it in the pocket.)

Vocabulary

The words listed below come from the story and its pictures. As you page through the book, ask your child 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.

• laundromat, laundry, toy bear
• washing machine, dryer
• dirty clothes, clean clothes, listening, searching
• looking, sliding
• towels, laundry bag
• climbing inside
• leaving, beret, wet clothes
• falling out, overalls
• spinning, drawing, dressing, box of soap
• spilling, white powder
• covered up, slipping
• worried, laundry basket, cage, sleeping
• talking, manager, sweeping, broom
• running
• pocket, spool, nuzzling, name