Little Love for Tomie dePaola

Tomie dePaola is one of my favorite authors.  To start out mini-unit, I chose to use the old stand by---the KWL.  I had previously read Oliver Button is a Sissy, which I adore!!

Next, I asked the kiddos how could we find new information about Tomie.  Of course, they directed me to google.com and we ended up on Tomie's website--tomie.com  This is a terrific website and we learned lots of information about Tomie dePaola.  The children were also able to make connections between Tomie's real life experiences and his books.  For instance, Oliver is a tap dancer and tap dancing was one of Tomie's biggest passions.  The kids inferred that Tomie is the real Oliver Button.

We also enjoyed watching an interview with Tomie where the children discovered that he had twin cousins, Fuffy and Fanny, that were artist just like him.  Here is the link to the interview:  http://bcove.me/vvtn3s85

I gave each child six post it notes and the children took research notes about what they learned.  Below are some of the interesting things that the children learned.

My school district has also organized our curriculum around specific themes for each six weeks.  This six weeks was all about "relationships" and the concepts on the chart were were highlighted.  These were prevalant themes through out The Art Lesson too.  So , I thought "Let's give it a try!"  Now, I always get nervous when trying to teach theme to little kiddos, because I think that it is too complex of a skill for them to master.  But guess what?  They come through everytime!!!!  They are such smarties.  As you can see from the chart below, I wrote the three big ideas.  Now we had discussed these ideas a few previous times too, so they were familiar with them.  I asked the kids to give me text evidence that yes, these were themes throughout the book.

Sometimes, theme and main idea can be confusing.  What's is the difference?  Well, fiction literature has a theme and informational text has a main idea.  Once I heard that it made complete sense. "OHHHHHHH!"

David Gets in Trouble

Today I taught one of my favorite lessons, Making Inferences using David Gets in Trouble by David Shannon. I even have a letter from David Shannon.  Jealous aren't you?  This is one of my favorite lessons.  Oh and BTW, David is actually in my class this year!  I wish that I could post his photo but that is probably a bad idea.

The first thing I did was ask the kids what was going on in the picture.  Oh course they said that David ate some of the cake.  I asked them how they knew that.  The kids said that David has cake on his face and there are finger marks in the cake.  Also, he's says "No, it wasn't me!"

Next I taught/discussed this chart with the kids.  Focusing on

schema + (text)clues = inference

So, here we go and give it a try. 

I find it easier to start on the right side of this chart and work backwards.  Here is the first picture and ideas that we wrote down.  Boy, do they have some schema about bad words.  Before we got into this, I inferred that David was in the bathroom.  The kiddos backed my up.  They said that there was a pipe coming out of the wall and there was also a towel on the wall. 

Great job 2B!  What a bunch of smarties!

Okay, on to picture number two.  I love that one students said that one of the clues is that there are no bite marks in the eggs.  I never even thought of that.  I also love that one student said that parents put the food in plastic, so if you refuse to eat it, they will give it to you later!  Haha!  Wonder what that's all about? 

Alright, continuing on.  This time I showed the kiddos a picture and sent them back to their desk with three post it notes.  They labeled them schema, clues, and inference.  Again, I suggested that they work backwards and fill in each post it like we had done together.  Then I had the kids bring their post it to the carpet.  They each shared what they wrote and then we put them on this chart.  Now there were a few kids that missed the mark, but for the most part they all did a great job. 

                    Here is one student's awesome thinking.  Check out the big BRAIN on H.B.!!!!!

I hope that you give this lesson a try....one of my three followers :(

Oliver Button is a Sissy

This story by Tomie de Paola is not one of his better know books but has great messages that children can relate to--being yourself, bullying, and teasing. These activities were spread out over several days. 

Below the literature are the themes that we are studying in reading this six weeks.  All of literature will revolve around relationships.

We had a staff development training on thinking maps before school started this year.  This is a circle map that we made prior to reading the book.  In the middle it says "Predictions."  We did a picture walk and then I wrote down the kiddos predictions.  After reading the book, we confirmed predictions that were true by placing a check mark nesxt to them.

Again we used a circle map to brainstorm ways to handle a bully.

On another day each child was given a sentence from the story.  The sentences were cut apart and the words put  in a baggie prior to the lesson.  After modeling arranging the words into sentences on the document camera, each child worked on making their own sentences at their desk.  A couple of students had more challenging sentences and we helped them as a class assemble theirs.  After each child had their sentence together they drew an illustration to go along with it.



On yet another session, we took all of the students sentences and illustrations a sequenced them to retell Oliver Button is a Sissy.