A Bucket of Blessings tells the story of a Monkey who is living in the jungle, and they are experiencing a drought. Monkey tries his best to find water and remembers that Peacock has the ability to bring rain when it dances. Peacock needs water in order to dance, so Monkey searches and finds some water to bring back to Peacock, but when he arrives back to Peacock, all the water has fallen out of the bucket. Monkey was discouraged, but there was just enough water to give Peacock the energy to dance and make it rain. The moral of the story is to help out wherever it is necessary, and to remember that with the intentions of being a help, many people are affected positively. In the classroom, a discussion about helping one another and doing what we can do to help our environment can take place. ( )

Mythology Write Up- Lesson Two ( )

This myth originating in India tells the tale of monkey in the forest who is in need of water. He approaches a peacock to ask for help and the peacock tells him to bring a pail of water. As the monkey is returning with water, he has a hole in his bucket. As he travels through the jungle, the water that spills brings back life to the plants. Upon returning to the peacock, the monkey has hardly any water left. However, due to the monkey's persistence and how the water helped the plants along the way, the peacock still helps the monkey. The peacock brings rain and restoration to the jungle.

The story of a monkey who is trying to get water to bring to the gods so that rain will come. The water spills out on his way back and spreads beautiful flowers along the way. A drop left in the bucket is enough to bring the rain in the end, so happy a ending. This was a nice bedtime story with my children. I'm not sure how one would share this in the classroom, though it might make a nice example of colorful artistry. ( )

“A Bucket of Blessings” is a folktale storybook. The story begins with a destitute monkey living in a village where there is no water. The monkey remembers that his mother once told him if a peacock dances then it will rain, so Monkey goes to see Peacock; Peacock tells him that in order for that to happen he will need water. Monkey goes and finds clean water in a spring, but on his journey back to Peacock, the water spills behind him bringing the village back to life. Peacock uses the little bit of water left in the bucket to dance, and then it begins to rain. The main message of this book is that clean water is essential to making life happen, and that anyone can be a hero like Monkey and Peacock. In my opinion, I like this shot folktale. The passage uses outstanding descriptive language despite its younger audience appeal. These words include vast, majestic, wonderful, etc. The passage also includes descriptive verbs such as rumbling, crushed, bloom, cursed, towards, etc. These words break through the generic verbs such as go to, open, sounded, etc. Another notable aspect of this book would be the unique and intricate illustrations. The illustrations utilize vibrant colors, patterns, and entirety of space that help to captive audiences and provide accurate portrayals of the passages. The illustrations play avital role in the story because they are used in place of lengthy descriptions; rather than telling, the author chooses to show. An example of this would be when Monkey wants Peacock to see what the spilled water has done for the village he says “’Look behind you!’” The next page is wordless and only has 2 full page illustrations of what Peacock turns to see- a healthy and beautiful village. In addition the book only uses animal characters rather than humans. This aspect of the passage makes the book ideal for younger audiences; the animal characters also help to expand vocabulary by including animal names such as “Monkey, Peacock, Mongoose, Toad, Rabbit…” This book is ideal for younger audiences on a first to second grade reading level. ( )