If You Give A Moose A Muffin

Transcription

1 If You Give A Moose A Muffin Skyler Harwood Comprehension Kindergarten Essential Questions How do we think while reading in order to understand and respond? How do we apply reading skills and strategies to comprehend what was just read? Enduring Understandings By using prior knowledge, vocabulary, and context clues, comprehension of the text is achieved. By relating to the characters and situations in a story, understanding of the situation and characters feelings are gained, as well as knowledge of how the plot is progressing. Standards 1.3.K.A: Respond to works of literature. 1.1.K.C: Expand oral language through the use of an increasingly robust vocabulary 1.6.K.B: Speak clearly enough to be understood by all audiences using appropriate volume. Share stories, familiar experiences and interests, employing gestures where appropriate. Reasoning behind my methods: I chose to focus on reading comprehension. All of my activities are focused around prior knowledge, fixing misconceptions, vocabulary, and working on a linear understanding of events. Especially with a book like this, the linear aspect is crucial. With so many things taking place, the students need to be able to keep in mind that the muffin comes before the jam, which leads to the next thing, instead of getting a jumbled idea of the chain of events. These lessons teach the students skills that they can apply to other reading or listening techniques, they will help them to gain comprehension of harder texts as they grow and move on to harder material. 1.6.K.A: Listen and respond appropriately to others in small and large group situations. Pre-Assessment Before reading the book, students will be asked the following question to find out their prior knowledge of moose, muffins, or even baking are seeing as all these things occur in the book Formative Assessment Throughout the reading, and the unit as a whole, students will be asked openended questions to check for understanding. Some of these questions might be: If You Give A Moose A Muffin 1

2 How might this change the story if this is here instead of where it is supposed to be? How are you planning to draw this definition? How would you summarize the beginning of the story? Summative Assessment At the end of the unit, students will be asked to come up with the most important things from the story, and to explain why they are important aspects. This will help to evaluate whether or not the students comprehend the story and if they truly understand the events that occurred within it. Adaptations For students who may have learning disabilities, they could have the story read to them more than once, to allow more time for processing, or the chance to pick up on things that were missed the first time. These students would also be given the opportunity to talk through their thinking more, so that they have the opportunity to communicate their thoughts and get their thoughts straight, so that understanding can occur. For students who are gifted, they would simply need to be challenged. They would be given slightly harder tasks on days when the class is working on letter recognition, and would be asked to do a different type of representation for the vocabulary word on their muffin. These students could also be called on to talk about the definitions to the vocabulary words when they are first being introduced (especially if the other students are having issues with them). If You Give A Moose A Muffin 2

3 Day One: If You Give A Moose A Muffin Book, by Laura Numeroff, Illustrated by Felicia Bond. Pre-written vocabulary cards. Chalkboard & chalk. Probably some tape (to hang up the vocab cards). Introduce the book If You Give A Moose A Muffin. Today we are going to be reading a book called if you give a moose a muffin, in this book are some vocabulary words that you might not know, so we are going to go over them as a class so we can understand the story better. Write the vocabulary words on the board Homemade Sew Borrow Clothesline Antlers Cardboard Ask students what they think the word means. After a few answers, (if the correct definition is not given) help them to the correct definition, and write it on the board next to the vocabulary word. When you write them all down, take the pre written vocabulary cards and place them on the word wall in their appropriate places. Who knows what a moose is? Has anyone ever seen a moose? In pictures? In real life? At a zoo? Tell them that a moose is a large furry animal that looks almost like a deer, but is known for having very large antlers, which is one of our vocabulary words! The main character in this story is also a moose, and I believe that we are going to find out what might happen if you give a moose a muffin. Would you all like to find that out? Okay, let s read If You Give A Moose A Muffin. Read the story. Ask question It ll scare him so much, he ll knock over the paints! Have you ever been so scared that you fell over or jumped back? Get a few responses, and then continue with the story. Ask question Have you ever borrowed something from anyone? (When moose borrows a sweater). Ask question How do you think the boy in the book feels? (Show picture of boy sleeping on the couch). When you finish the story, ask the students what they thought of the story. Did they like it, dislike it, have a different ending in mind? Did you all notice our vocabulary words in the story? Do you have a better understanding of them now that you have heard them within a story? Do you see how vocabulary can help us understand the things that we read? Our vocabulary words helped us to understand the whole story, so that we could follow the main character and his actions throughout the book. If You Give A Moose A Muffin 3

4 Day Two: Muffin outlines on white paper with vocabulary words written in them. (Enough for each student to do a few). Crayons, markers, other decorative supplies. Scissors Who can share with the class what our vocabulary words are for this unit? Write down the vocabulary words as students share them aloud. Give instructions for activity: You will be given a muffin that has one of our vocabulary words written on it. You are going to draw the definition like what we came up with yesterday on your muffin. Model the activity: If I had a muffin with the word blackberry bush on it, I might draw a picture of a bush with little black dots on it that are black berries, because that is the definition of blackberry bush, a bush that grows the fruit blackberries. When you complete your first, you may come get another. We will then cut them out along the black line and hang them up on the wall. As they are working I will go around the room and ask them questions that are related to their vocabulary word. Borrowed: Have you borrowed something from someone? What did you borrow? What happened? Did you give it back? What is the definition of borrow that you are drawing here? Is your experience with borrowing something that you might want to draw in your muffin? Homemade: Have you ever made something? Maybe baked cookies with your mom? Did you have fun? What definition are you drawing? Sew: Have you ever sewn something, or watched someone else sew? What are some things that are sewn? How are you planning on drawing this definition? Clothesline: Do you have a clothesline at your house? What do you do with a clothesline? How would you define clothesline? What do you want to draw? Antlers: What are you drawing? What animal besides a moose has antlers? What was the definition of antlers that we came up with yesterday? Are you using a different definition? When they are done and things are winding down, ask if anyone would like to share their muffin drawing. Go over a few of the illustrations and correct any misconceptions about the definitions. Explain to the students that these will be hung on the walls so that they can look at them and be reminded of the definition if they are trying to use it while writing. If You Give A Moose A Muffin 4

5 Day Three: Event cards that dictate the important events in the story. Preferably have magnets on hand to attach them to the board. Introduce the activity. Boys and girls! My if you give a moose a muffin book got all jumbled up, and all I have here are picture cards that have some of the important events from the story on them. I would love to read the book again, but I can t until it gets put back in the correct order. I need you to help me! Model the activity. I have one card that has a muffin on it, I m going to place that at the top of our chalkboard because we know that that is what happened first, and the moose was offered a muffin at the very beginning of the story. Next, the moose was offered jam, so I ll put this card with the jam on it right beside the muffin card. Have the students complete the rest of the storyline, by taking turns and sharing their thoughts (but call on them so things don t get out of hand). Allow them to discuss their thoughts and why they agree or disagree with the placement of a certain card. When all of the students agree on the placements of all the cards, go through and point out some of the mistakes, and correct them. When things are out of place ask questions like How might this change the story if this is here instead of where it is supposed to be? Allow a discussion of their thoughts about how the story might change. Further their understanding of the actual story by discussing the actual events and how they all connect to one another. Muffin to jam to more muffins, etc. Help them understand that all of these events are connected to each other, and would not occur in the same sequence if one were out of order. When things are all in their correct order thank them for helping you out with you predicament (the out of order book), and explain that you were really worried that you were not going to be able to put it back together yourself. Then go to the board and draw lines between the cards so that they are separated into three categories: Beginning, middle, and end. Explain that understanding what happens at the beginning middle and end of a story, and being able to summarize a story can really help understanding and comprehension. Define beginning as what happens first in the story, generally introductions of characters, places, and things. The point where you are still figuring things out. Define middle as the height of the story, when things are getting really exciting and very interesting. You just can t wait to find out what happens next. Define end and what happens last in the story, when you gain an understanding of why things happened throughout. Would anyone like to try and explain why these events are in the beginning, middle, and end categories? Being able to split stories up like this can help you to gain a better understanding of stories! Encourage them to try and do this in other things that they read, it s a great strategy to use to help get events linear in their minds. If You Give A Moose A Muffin 5

6 Day Four: The same things as day three. Leave the cards split up into beginning, middle, and end up on the board. Have a space on the board or on some large poster board/paper to write on. Begin by asking the students to briefly explain to you what beginning middle and end are (in reference to the lesson taught the day before). If they don t give the correct answer, redefine it for them. Today we are going to learn how to summarize a story. Yesterday we learned that the beginning, middle, and end are what make up a story and that the important events in the story all fall within these three categories. Does anyone know what a summary is? (Get some responses then clarify by saying) A summary is a short restatement of what happens in a book or story. When we write a story, We talk a little bit about what happens in the beginning of our story, then the middle, and finally the end. We connect all of that together with our transition words, which are (call on students, receive answers such as then, next, finally, etc.). Shall we try to write a summary about If you give a moose a muffin? You will probably have to guide them along quite a bit, by restating in simpler terms what the students are saying, so instead of saying the boy gave the moose a muffin and jam and they went inside You would probably write The boy offered the moose a muffin, and they both went inside. Then the moose wanted to do a lot of things. Finally, The moose decided he wanted to eat another muffin. It s a very simple summary, but it will help the students with their linear understanding of the text and through that their comprehension of the story as a whole. Explain to the students that this is another strategy/tool that they can use when they are reading a story and are trying to understand it fully. Unit Wrap Up Review what was taught in the unit, go over the vocabulary again, and talk about how it popped up in the book. Talk about how knowing the vocabulary in the story can further understanding, instead of skipping over words that you don t know and losing more understanding because of it. Talk again about how important it is to be able to pick out the important events in a story and be able to line them un chronologically. Being able to pick out the important events from the fluff is a critical step towards comprehension. Also reiterate how summarizing can help with understanding and comprehension. Especially if you are reading a book in parts. Before continuing on, summarize what happened the last time you read so that you can build off of that understanding for the next part of the book. These are other uses of the simple skills that they just learned. They can be applied in many situations. If You Give A Moose A Muffin 6