Comparing David Shannon Stories

After reading A Bad Case of Stripes and Too Many Toys by David Shannon, the students created Venn Diagrams to compare the stories. After creating their diagrams in small groups, they independently created foldables to show their understanding. On the top flap, they wrote the title "Comparing Stories by David Shannon." On the second flap, they wrote one thing that was the same for both of the stories. On the third and fourth flaps, they wrote how the two stories were different. But, the things that they chose as different had to relate back to how they were both the same. For example, if they chose that they both had a setting, they had to then explain how the settings were different from one another. If they chose that both books had problems, they had to explain the problems for both books. The purpose of this lesson was to build a deeper understanding of the elements that make up fiction stories.

A Bad Case of Stripes

To learn about the elements and features of fiction story, we read various David Shannon books. One of the books we read was A Bad Case of Stripes. After reading, the students created a Story Map to explain the characters, setting, problem, and solution. In a separate lesson, not pictured, they also retold the beginning, middle, and end. After concluding our lessons over this book, the students created art to display with their work during Daily 5 time.

 

Comparing Stories by Eric Carle

As a part of our lessons on fiction story elements and our author study of Eric Carle, we compared the stories The Mixed-Up Chameleon and The Foolish Tortoise. Using a Double Bubble Map, we started with how the two stories are the same: author, problems, solutions, setting, animals, reptiles, etc. We then talked about how those things are the same, there are differences between them. We color coded the parts to show how although they have elements that are the same, the author used them differently to create two unique stories.

The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle

The students read The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle as a part of our author study and lessons on fiction story elements. After reading the book together, the students independently completed story maps to show their understanding of the characters, setting, problem, and solutions. While I worked with students in small groups, they painted a picture of The Mixed-Up Chameleon to display with their story maps.

Baking Cookies: Fiction or Non-Fiction?

We made cookies to assess the students' understanding of fiction and non-fiction with all of the first grade teachers team teaching. We chose to make chocolate chip cookies because we were also learning the /ch/ sound in word work. First we read and followed the recipe for making the cookies in both English and Spanish. The students identified that the author's purpose for writing the recipe was for information. The recipe was non-fiction. While waiting for the cookies to bake, we read The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins. The students identified that this book is for entertainment. Then, the cookies were enjoyed by all.

The Cow Who Clucked

We recently read The Cow Who Clucked by Denise Fleming to further learn how to make connections to a story. After reading and discussing some of the events that happened, the students wrote one sentence to describe their connection to the story on an outline of a person. They then colored the person to look like them.

Expository vs. Fiction

To help the students understand the difference between expository and fiction texts, we read Scaredy Crow (from ReadingA-Z) and All Kinds of Farms (from WeGiveBooks). The students then  created Double Bubble Maps to record how the books were the same and how they were different.