FIRE!!!!!!

Who hasn't seen a fire of some sort? They are destructive, scary and they hurt people. They take away homes, cars, and even lives. Can you think back to when you were a child and you learned that "Only YOU can prevent forest fires"? Does anyone remember who said that ? If you guessed Smokey the Bear, you are right!!

In this activity, meant to teach the reading comprehension strategy of synthesizing, students will build upon their background knowledge of forest fires, read a book about forest fires and then be able to synthesize the two forms of information together.

Prior to reading the book  Fire in the Forest: A Cycle of Growth and Renewal,by Laurence Pringle,  students will be given a graphic organizer that looks like a bulls eye.  In the inner most circle, students will write down key concepts from their existing knowledge of forest fires. During the reading of the book, the students will write down key concepts that they learn from reading the book. These concepts will be written in the middle circle. Once the book has been read, students can look at what they wrote in the inner circle, and then what they wrote in the middle circle and synthesize the two together. The key concepts for the synthesized information will be written in the outermost circle.

For example: If I were doing this activity about a book on being a teacher, my inner circle might have key concepts such as "summers off", "coloring all day"and " playing with toys".  In my middle circle, I would have concepts similar to "assessments", "CCGPS" and "EOCT".  In my outer circle, I might synthesize this information into something like "teachers no longer get to play with toys and color all day since the school systems adopted the CCGPS".

This comprehension strategy helps students connect what they are learning with what they already know.
What do you know about forest fires? What might you be able to learn when you read our book? Do you think that your opinion of a forest fire might change when you are able to see a bigger picture?

The Problem Solving Monster

Everyone has that one certain food that they just hate to eat! Who hasn't tried the oldest trick in the book, the feed your dog the nasty food on your plate trick?  When your parents weren't looking, or you thought they weren't looking, off the plate and under the table went the green beans! In the story The Monster Who Ate My Peas, the main character cannot stand peas. He is forced to sit at the table until every last pea is gone.

All of a sudden, his problems are solved!!! A HUGE, UGLY monster appears and offers to eat the little boys peas....for a price. At first, the monster just wanted the boys soccer ball in return for eating the peas. The next time around, the monster wants the boys bike in return for eating the peas. The little boy hesitates but gives his bike away. The third time around, the monster wants something so big, the boy doesn't think he can do it!!! The monster wants the little boys dog! The boy decides that he just can't give away his dog. He will just have to eat the peas. In the end, the boy realizes that everything comes at a price and that peas aren't as bad as he thought.

We would use this book to help teach the reading comprehension strategy of visualization and inference. Each of us can think of that one food we don't like to eat. Mine is bananas.... This will make it really easy for students to visualize what is happening in the book as well as make connections to their own lives. 

A visualization strategy that the teacher could use is to have the students visualize that one food in their mind. They can then draw a picture of their one food they just can't eat. The teacher would then ask the students to keep that image in mind as the story is read. At the end of the story, students can share their pictures and tell what they would do if they were in the little boy's shoes.

Sheila Rae, the Brave

In our book, Sheila Rae, the Brave written by Kevin Henkes, we meet a mouse named Sheila Rae and her sister Louise who are polar opposites. Sheila Rae is not afraid of anything and is quite honestly, a daredevil. Louise, on the other hand, is very quiet and afraid of nearly everything. Like most siblings, these two deal with plenty of sibling rivalry. It takes something happening to Sheila Rae that was so scary that even Sheila Rae was scared, for the sisters to decide that loyalty and love could be better than sibling rivalry.

We would use this book to help teach the reading comprehension strategy of making text to self connections. Text to self connections involve a reader reading a passage or story and picking out different ways that they can relate to the story. Not everyone will relate to the story the same way and the students can be given the opportunity to share their feelings and work collaboratively to gain a better understanding of the book.

The way we would choose to teach this lesson would be to read the book first as a teacher and come up with ways that we as teachers can relate to the book. (We would make sure that they were appropriate for students to hear.) Then we would read the book aloud to the students, encouraging them to use post-it notes while they are listening to make notes of the ways in which they relate to the book. At the end of the story, the students would be allowed to come to the front and place their post-it notes on a large sheet of paper. The teacher could then take the paper home and look over it. She could write out any of the questions the students may have had or the ways that they related to the book and discuss it in a group setting the following day. A side advantage to this, would be that teachers would have a glimpse into the home lives of students (depending on the book being discussed) and could speak to a student based on that knowledge or refer the student to the appropriate person for help.