The Key to Extraordinary

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Finding your destiny.  Is our destiny just one thing we might do that is extraordinary, or the things we do in every day life that matter the most?  A book to make you think!  

Kinders Learn about Dental Health and Animals

To help promote dental health with Kindergarten, I choose to read Doctor De Soto by William Steig.  Of course I had to get more than just a read aloud in, so with this lesson I promoted award-winning books, an author and a bit of research and critical thinking.
This 30 minute lesson progressed as such...
1.  First a general look at the book, the award it won and a promotion of other books by the same author.
2.  Next, I read the book while we predicted along the way, talked about the big story problem and discussed what the different animals ate that were presented in the story.
3.  At the end of the book, I went back to the animals that were treated in the story and suggested that not all animals would be welcome, as indicated on Doctor De Soto's sign.  We discussed the differences between meat-eaters and plant-eaters.  I had previously introduced them to our online database (Worldbook Online) so again suggested we log on and see what other animals Doctor De Soto would be willing to treat.
4.  With pre-selected pictures of animals, we predicted with a raise of hands whether or not Doctor De Soto would treat the animal on the card.  They helped me navigate to the site and find the information on each animal.  They had to make inferences by the facts given about what the animal ate whether or not Doctor De Soto would treat the animal.  There were clues like "nibbled on grass" or "hunted for animals" that were great for inferring.
5.  I ended our search by asking them what would Doctor De Soto tell all his patients (and them) about taking care of their teeth so they wouldn't get a cavity like the fox in the story.  Of course, they knew the answer!

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Strega Nona and 2nd graders

Recently I had fun with a Tomie dePaola favorite, Strega Nona's Harvest.  For a second grade lesson I integrated comparing characters, character traits, providing text evidence and learning a little about the author.  My lesson sequence was as follows:
1.  First we went to a website to learn a bit about Tomie dePaola: www.readingrockets.com.  They have great author interviews.
2.  Next I explained their purpose in reading this book; identifying character traits and giving text evidence.  This was not the 2nd graders first time to show text evidence or learn about character traits, but they still need guidance.  I used a whole-brain method to define character traits...
        Character Traits: Its' who the character is on the inside. (point to your heart).  You can tell by what the character does (do arm and feet fake walking motion) or says (use one hand to make talking motion near your mouth).  The students copy your motions while you say the definition.
3.  Then I show them this Venn Diagram and I tell them the character traits for Strega Nona, Big Anthony and both.  Their job after the story will be to give text evidence of what the character says and does to show these traits.
4.  During reading I stop and point out text evidence.  By the end of the story they are getting quite good and giving the evidence.
5.  After reading, each pair shares a Venn diagram to write just one text evidence for each part.  There is way more than one.  Guide partners that are not giving strong text evidence.

Biography Inquiry Jump Start

To jump start an inquiry research project I chose to start with a read aloud.  Duh, I'm a librarian.  The objective is to begin a research unit on importance of past United States presidents.  Instead of the typical, fact gathering research, my hope is to make the students think deeper and more at what really matters about the subject.
So, I started with a picture of the Washington DC Mall that maps out the Presidential memorials.  They noticed only 5 out of 44 presidents have a memorial.  I then read aloud Looking at Lincoln by Maira Kalman.  This biographical information book shares the life of Abraham Lincoln and ends with a look at his memorial in Washington, DC.  After listening I asked students to write about why they think Abraham Lincoln was one of the 5 presidents chosen to have a memorial.  This is the first of two lessons on biography inquiries.  The next lesson students will choose one of the other 4 presidents to learn more about. They will have to justify why they were also chosen to have a memorial on the Mall.

Voting for a Favorite Book

In Texas, 3rd - 6th grade students have the opportunity to vote on their favorite book from a list of 20 nominated books - The Bluebonnet Award.  To help my students make an educated decision on which book to vote for, we looked at criteria for award-winning books.  With this lesson they listed their ideas of what makes a good book and then listened to me read aloud a recent award-winning book.  I chose Beautiful Blackbird by Ashley Bryan (a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Winner).  We also explored the criteria to win a Coretta Scott King Award.  Through the process students then created their own criteria of how they will choose the Bluebonnet Award winner.  At the end of the lesson we then looked at how to find other award-winning books using the online catalog.