Happy Tuesday everyone! Hey….it’s only a few more weeks to the end of the year for most schools, and the pressure’s on to help our kiddles really “cement” what they’ve learned this year. Here’s an idea for you if your kiddles haven’t yet mastered main idea, details, and compare and contrast. All of these are critical core standards that kiddles need for life, not to mention the SBAC and the ELL tests our own kiddles take. In our teaching, we are committed and passionate about providing materials that all students can access, so we use a lot of our differentiated, leveled passages. But we are always finding other materials with which they can read and compare them as well. Books, Scholastic News, videos…we are always on the hunt. So we are excited (picture me doing the happy dance in the middle of the store…oh yeah) when we find a new text that matches well for comparison with our leveled passages.
This week, it was good ol’ Kohl’s to the rescue! They happen to have fabulous books right now by the wonderful author, Julie Fogliano, for only five bucks! That’s right….five bucks! Now you could go to Dairy Queen and have their five buck lunch, or if you are a teacher, you’ll probably opt to go for the five bucks books at Kohl’s! And for only $15, I can get a set of three that are just right for my intervention groups! What a deal! So this week my second graders listened to me read “and then it’s spring” by Fogliano, while they took notes on main idea and details, writing them on a side-by-side sheet. (Listening comprehension is a HUGE must-master skill…but more on that another time.) Next, the kiddles read our “Spring Changes” passages, highlighted the main idea and details, then took notes on the other side of the side-by-side notes sheet. Finally, they highlighted the notes from both books that are the same. Here they are getting ready to write a summary about what’s the same and what’s different.
I love this lesson because it combines so many must learn strategies, and because it is such a great visual way for students to understand and see what is the same and what is different. So hop in the car and run right down to Kohl’s to pick up some of Fogliano’s great books for only five bucks! (I also highly recommend the one called “if you want to see a whale.” You’ll need it in a couple of weeks when you are studying the ocean….or just reading about it while you dream of summer vacay!) Hurry….go get some of those great books, and hang in there….just a few weeks to go!
Happy Teaching!
Smiles,
Kristin
