Serious Farm
Author: Tim Egan; Illustrator: Tim Egan
Farmer Fred runs a serious farm. He’s not mean or sad or angry, just serious. He thinks farming is serious business and so do his animals. Until one day when the animals decide they’ve had enough. Fed up with Fred’s seriousness, they decide it’s high time they had a few laughs there on the farm. So the animals, led by Edna the cow, set on a campaign to get a chuckle out of Farmer Fred. Try as they might, the animals still can’t get a rise out of Farmer Fred. Frustrated, they decide to run away from Serious Farm.
Serious Farm is a rare kind of children’s book. It appeals to kids because it is interesting, lighthearted, and funny. But at the same time it has a complex storyline, difficult vocabulary, and a heartfelt message. The result is a book that is able to engage students and get them talking and thinking about complicated things without boring or losing them like you would expect a ‘deeper’ book to do.
The setting of the story (a farm) is a common one for children’s books. If you look through a collection of farm stories, you’ll see that almost every one of them is humorous in nature. Kids pick up on this sort of thing and bring them as expectations to reading new books. Serious Farm doesn’t disappoint. From the cover picture, with it’s deadpan animal faces, right through the story to it’s plot resolution (the look on the animal’s faces when they hear about lions in the woods is priceless), this is a funny book.
What’s more, it invites kids to think funny on their own. As the animals do silly thing after silly thing to try and make Farmer Fred laugh, my students always start yelling out their own ideas about what the animals might do next. It takes great creativity to think up those sorts of antics. It takes a special kind of book to inspire that creativity.
The plot of Serious Farm is more complicated than most children’s books - the animals are tired of being serious; they do silly things to get Farmer Fred to laugh but they don’t work; the animals run-away; Farmer Fred is sad and goes after them; they have a chat about individuality and loving each other despite their differences; everyone goes home happier - but is presented in a way that, with some adult guidance - makes it accessible to 5 and 6 year old kids. It affords us many opportunities to talk with kids about complicated things, too, like the shades of meaning between serious and angry, and the fact that feeling differently isn’t a reason for people to not get along.
Overall, Serious Farm is a great book to read with kindergarten and first grade students who are learning to read. Its complexity stretches kids understanding of stories while it’s familiar setting, characters and great sense of humor make it accessible and engaging.
Read-Aloud Tips
- Being the advocate that I am of using silly voices while reading children’s books to kindergarteners, I insist that you use a dead-pan southern drawl for Farmer Fred’s part of this story. Make sure you get that flat-eyed, line-mouthed, serious look of his down, too. Edna’s voice can be equally funny.
- Some of the funniest parts of this book are not described by the words of the story, but happen instead in the pictures. Be sure to take time to look at and discuss some of the silly things the animals do that the text glosses over.
- This site encourages discussion of all stories after they are read, but Serious Farm falls into a special category. Much of this story’s plot and message can be missed by a 5- or 6-year old if not discussed afterwards. So be sure to spend a few minutes talking (the comprehension questions below are a good place to start) about this book when you’re done.
Comprehension Questions
Pre-Reading
- Look at the faces of the farmer and his animals on the cover. How do they look? How do you think they feel? If you told them a funny joke, would they laugh?
- Discuss the meaning of the word ’serious’. Do you think the animals on Serious Farm like it there? Do you think they have fun?
- Would you want to live on this farm?
Post-Reading
- Did the animals like Farmer Fred? How do you know? (Hint: Would they have tried so hard to make him laugh if they didn’t like him?)
- Talk about one thing the animals did to make Farmer Fred laugh. Why was that funny?
- Farmer Fred says, ‘Cows and chickens runnin wild in the woods, hehehe.’ Why does he think that’s funny?
Literacy Activities
Writing
- Draw a picture of you being serious. Make sure you make your face look serious. If you’re not sure how to do that, look at the faces of the characters in the book for ideas.
- Draw a picture of Farmer Fred’s farm. Include all the animals in the story, then label as many things as you can in your picture.
- In this story, the animals do lots of silly things to try and make Farmer Fred laugh. See if you can come up with a new thing (something not in the book) the animals might have done and draw and write about that.
Phonemic Awareness
- Who Am I? Tell your child that you are going to pretend to be a character from the story. you will tell them your name in serious speak, which is real slow. Say the name of an animal or character from the story, but stretch it out into it’s individual sounds: C - O - W. Your child must squish the sounds together and figure out who it is. Character names include:
cow sheep chicken pig chick horse goat farmer Edna Fred Bernie Cormac - What Did You Say, Fred? The silly animals have gotten things all mixed up on Serious Farm and Farmer Fred can’t get his vegetables names right! Say the names of the following vegetables and see if your child can figure out which vegetable it really is:
dorn pwash ipples breen geans lamatoes rotatoes eranges mumpkins rettuce kelery napes zreen weppers
Phonics
- Farmer Fred’s Funny farm Using different characters from the book, come up with descriptions that use matching letters.
Example: crazy cow, shocking sheep, gorgeous goat, chunky chicken, etc.
- There’s Nothing Funny About… Pick a letter (you can print and cut apart our letter cards) then take turns brainstorming things that start with that letter. Each word must be presented with Farmer Fred’s signature line, ‘There’s nothing funny about ___.’
Example: P.
Child: There’s nothing funny about pumpkins.
You: There’s nothing funny about puzzles.
Child: There’s nothing funny about pizzas.
Fun
- Seriously Funny Faces Challenge your child to the Seriously Funny Faces game. one person plays the role of Farmer Fred; the other is Edna the Cow. As Edna the Cow makes funny faces, tells jokes, or acts goofy for 30 seconds, Farmer Fred must try to keep a serious, straight-face. If Farmer Fred laughs, Edna the Cow gets a point. If not, Farmer Fred gets a point. Then switch places for the next round.
This game is especially fun if you can have more than one ‘cow,’ as siblings, classmates or friends team up to make the serious farmer chuckle. - Animals Get Dressed One of the funniest things the animals in Serious Farm do is put on Farmer Fred’s clothes. There is a hilarious page where we see the animals struggling to get dressed.
Challenge your children to get dressed ‘animal style.’ On all fours, using no hands, they must put on a shirt, jacket, pants, or dress as if they were a cow, pig, or chicken! (There may not be anything funny about corn, but this game is a riot!)
If you find these activities helpful, please consider helping support this site by clicking here to purchase Serious Farm.
ryan » May 29th, 2008 at 4:57 pm »