I did this last week (or was it the was it the week before?). All the days a FLYING by this year!! We have been busy, busy! So busy I barely have time to sit down at the computer each night, let alone put together a coherent post. Forgive me please, if this post is full of squirrels and typos. I apologize from the get-go!
We have been working on answering who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. We spent LOTS of time on this. I found these posters *free* on Teachers Pay Teachers by I Do We Do You Do (love the name!). I loved them because they were simple and to the point. I have them posted near my easel so kids can refer to them often.
We did a story board to answer questions about a story as a performance task. I read aloud the book Pet Show by Ezra Jack Keats. I love his books.
I read aloud the book and modeled how to create and organize the story board when I came to each element. We also talked A BUNCH about how to answer in a COMPLETE sentence using the question to help. The kids are MUCH better at this but we will keep working on that ALL year long. I wrote the beginning of the compete sentence and then drew a line for kids to “fill in the blank” and tell their partner the character, setting, etc.
The yellow under the questions are words used to create the answer in a complete sentence. Then students were asked to complete the story board on their own. Since we had read the story aloud and talked about the story and then discussed the answers whole group, the kids had a great deal of support. But I was okay with that since the task itself was new :).
Kids were given a 12×18 sheet of white construction paper, a copy of the book, and access to the anchor chart.
Students were also given this checklist to make sure they met all the requirements of the project. My district is requires standards based reporting in grades K-3. On the bottom of the checklist I cut and pasted the part of the rubric this project meets so I can use it for a grade. It is nothing fancy, but feel free to download it free here.
The alignment looks off for some reason in Google Drive, but if you download it, then it is fine. You can download it in Word
here.
I was pretty pleased with the end result. Here is an example or two…or um, three. Whatever, right!?!!
Then we read a few different chapters from Poppleton in Fall and Poppleton in Spring. We created this story elements grid here. Notice at the top of table instead of writing the elements, I wrote a question. I just noticed the titles were all cut off on the far left side of the picture Sorry! It is not the neatest anchor chart, but it gets the job done! I think the stories were The Bicycle, Pancakes, and The Coat.
For the last story were read (I think that was the pancake story) I used white tape to erase the lines between the character and setting, and the line between the problem and solution. I explained that usually in the beginning of the story the author introduces the characters and setting, in the middle is the problem or kickoff and event or plan, and in the end is the solution. It doesn’t always work perfectly but it gives students an idea of how narratives are structured.
This week were are reading stories and writing the beginning, middle, and end so this activity was the perfect bridge from wh- questions and story elements to beginning, middle, and end!
Annddd…now I am worn out! I will have to post more about what we did last week later because now I am pooped!
Mandy Gregory is a 2007 and 2012 Teacher of the Year. She has taught Kindergarten- 4th grades in both the general education and inclusion settings. She is currently a 1st grade Special Education teacher. She is the owner and creator of Mandy’s Tips for Teachers website (www.mandystipsforteachers.com) and has over 13 years of teaching experience. She is married with two beautiful children.
