henry and mudge under the yellow moon ~ graphic organizer freebie

Last week we read Henry and Mudge Under the Yellow Moon this week in class. We are using this story to start focusing on story elements. We concentrated on just character and setting for this story.

First, we created a flap book to compare & contrast Henry & Mudge. 

Click on the picture above to get your copy of the flap book. I copied the lines on the inside for the kids, but you can skip that step if you want. 

Then we talked about setting. 

Before we talked about the setting, I read When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant and we talked about the setting of that book. The setting in this book and Henry & Mudge are so easy, but I wanted the kids to really focus on the clues that help determine the setting. This also helps them provide evidence for their answer, which they will need to be able to do later on. 

The idea for the graphic organizer I made for the setting is right out of our Trophies book ~ I just prettied it up. I didn't put a title on it so it can easily be used for any story. You can grab that one too if you click on it.

Linking up with Darling Little Learners for Show and Tell Wednesday!

      

presidential

President's Day is near. More than a good reason for a day off school in this long stretch of the school year, it's a good reason to teach compare and contrast. My class is working on a compare/contrast essay about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The idea is not revolutionary, but it works so well to integrate social studies, reading, and writing.

First, I read books to the class about Washington and Lincoln. As I was reading, I stopped every few pages for the class to tell me what to record on our fact posters. They look different, you say? My sub wrote the Lincoln facts with the kids.

Once the facts have been collected, the students decide which they feel are the most important facts to include in their essay. The structure of this essay is basic - introduction paragraph, compare paragraph, contrast paragraph, and conclusion paragraph.

The students organize the facts they have selected on this graphic organizer in a bullet format. Then the top box contains all the information for the compare paragraph and the bottom boxes are for the contrast paragraph. From here they will write their rough draft. Click on the picture to download the graphic organizer for your classroom.

I'm hoping these turn out well and we are done before President's Day!