Author Studies

Once again, we find ourselves marveling at how fast time is going!  How did it get to be mid-December already?!  We have spent the last three weeks in first grade focusing on two different authors - Laura Numeroff and Tomie dePaola.  And while these are two of our favorite units, we don't have a ton of student work samples to post.  I guess that's because we use these two units to really hone in on important concepts that can be applied across the board to comprehension.  The discussions we have had in the past three weeks about cause and effect, problem and solution, and especially characters have allowed us to really see our students' growth as readers and writers.  And I must say, we are impressed!

So, Laura Numeroff . . . Who doesn't love her stories about those cute animals and the helpful, kind kids who serve their every whim?!  Of course, we kicked off the week with If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and students worked in s Smart Center (Book Smart) to sequence the events of the story.  As we read each of the books, including If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, and If You Give a Dog a Donut, we really focused on cause and effect relationships.  This great unit called "Cause and Effect Detectives" helped us introduce the concept and helped our students understand how to apply the strategy outside of Laura Numeroff's books.  We also created anchor charts like the one below. 

Here are some examples of our Reading Response Journals for the end of our Laura Numeroff study.  We read If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, and the students wrote about what they would ask for at the movies. 

If you take me to the movies, I will ask for a toy.

If you take me to the movies, I will ask for 3D glasses.  (Sorry this one is sideways - don't know how that happened!)

If you take me to the movies, I would ask for a dollar.

We spent two weeks with our second author, Tomie dePaola, focusing on his series about Strega Nona.  For these two weeks, we worked with story elements, focusing mostly on characters.  Our first anchor chart shows how we mapped our chracters, setting problem and solution for the first few stories we read, including Strega Nona and Strega Nona's Magic Lessons.

One big reason we did this Strega Nona unit is because we have to include an opinion piece in our students' first grade writing portfolios.  Ms. Shivers adopted a graphic organizer she found over at First Grade Fanatic so that we could do a little practice with our students.  First the students wrote about thier favorite foods, then their favorite books.  Our version of the graphic organizer has the students writing a topic sentence (by the star) then three reasons supporting their opinion.  Here we made sure students we using those transitional words like "first", "next" and "most importantly".  Finally, the heart section is where students restate their opinion, giving a personal feeling about their topic.  Here are some examples of their writing. 
(PHOTOS - coming soon!)
For the actual portfolio piece, students have to choose a character and site specific reasons from the book why they like that character.  We read Strega Nona, her Story and Big Anthony, his Story.  We really wanted our students to analyze both internal and external characteristics of the characters.  We talked about what the characters look like, but also how they solve problems and what that tells us about the characters.  Here are the anchor charts we used to analyze characters. 

Once we had plenty of information about the characters, our students - at this point very comfortable with the process of writing opinions - chose a character to write about.  Here are some examples of their work.  The graphic organizer served as a rough draft.  A final, edited piece will be in book form and go in their portfolios.  Coming up this week, we will talk about self-assessment and do some peer editing.  Gotta hit all those Common Core Writing Standards!  But more importantly, our students are really learning them!
(PHOTOS - coming soon!)
I wanted to include some great center work that our students did along with the Strega Nona unit. We used a few activities from this Strega Nona unit, including the one where students create their own kind of magical pot.  Here are some examples of a magical candy pot and a magical cupcake pot.

In Math we happened to have been studying measurement using both standard and non-standard units.  Ms. Arbogast created this activity where the students had to measure objects found in our classroom using different types of pasta.

Our book tree project was all about Strega Nona this month.  The students made ornaments they decorated with dried pasta that featured important characters or symbols from the books.  My favorite is the three kisses!
(PHOTO - coming soon!)
Finally, here are our Reading Response Journals.  The students wrote an alternative way to stop Strega Nona's magical pasta pot from boiling (instead of three kisses).  Their imaginations were certainly in full force here - One writing that she would put a cat in the pot.  Yikes!

I would put a cat in it.

I will make the pot stop by putting in a tear drop.