First Grade Lyons' Den: April 2018

April 22, 2018

Tadpole's Promise

The first time I heard this story a professor had read it to our class. I didn't know what reaction I should've had. Should I have laughed, cried, or jumped up and said, "Why?!"

If you haven't seen this book and you're looking for a surprise ending where your emotions are in constant turmoil, this is the book. It's also amazing to see how many students "get" the ending!

Students responded in their notebooks using any comprehension strategy they wanted. At the bottom, they had to write which strategy they used.

Here's their work!

My Dog Spot

With structured, guided practice students can respond to their reading! I have taught the comprehension strategies-predicting, connections, questioning, retelling, inferring, and visualizing. Students can now independently pick a strategy and respond in their notebooks.

At times though, I have a specific lesson with a specific strategy I want them to use. I used this book with my class to continue our work with visualizing.

I covered the front of the book and didn't show them any of the pictures. I told them they had to visualize what the dog looked like by the descriptions the author used. At the end, we brainstormed a list of what the dog looked like and they created an illustration.

Here's some of their work!