Last week, we began reading Mr. Popper's Penguins during our shared reading time. I am sad to say that up until this point, I have never actually read this book and/or seen the movie! Boy...was I missing out! My students have absolutely fallen head over heels for Captain Cook {the penguin} and the whole Popper family. This book is a scream...from the Poppers turning their refrigerator into the proper habitat for this tuxedo wearing creature to Captain Cook building his rookery from daily household objects!
Each day, I read a new chapter from Mr. Popper's Penguins. While reading, I have a student recording "important words" on sticky notes. These are words that we stop to discuss or words that our recorder thinks we may want to remember. This books has a wonderful selection of words to really build a student's vocabulary. After we read the chapter, we discuss our words and add them to our sweet little version of Captain Cook! This book has really been providing those "teachable moments" that we all know and love! We have learned all about prefixes, suffixes, dialogue, adverbs...and the list goes on! Have I mentioned...I LOVE this book????
Each day, we dive into another chapter. I have almost decided to move shared reading to the very beginning of our day because my kids enter the door asking about our dear Popper family. After reading and some class discussion, each child responds to a writing prompt from the chapter. Click on the cute little penguin below to take a look at those journal prompts.
Each student has their own written response journal that they use when responding to prompts. I tried using their writing journals but everything began getting all jumbled up, so separate journals were the ticket.
I have been so impressed with the progress that the students have made in such a short time. They are now responding with two paragraphs for each prompt. {definitely something we had to work towards} One paragraph identifies details that happen from the story and one paragraph is used to make text-to-self connections with the events that occurred during that chapter. Not only has this improved my students comprehension skills but MY OH MY how their writing has improved all around! Again, the kids are just so into the story they can hardly wait to get into their journals. One of my boys who once despised writing is now writing up a storm. It's all about tapping into their interest!?! Right??? Right!
Prior to beginning this little unit of study, we really spent time exploring written response, reading examples and creating a rubric to identify the things that we thought we would need to include to have a powerful response. Here is what we came up with...
You can click here for an example Reader's Response Rubric from ReadWriteThink!
I just can't wait to find out what happens in this story! I may have to read ahead! :)
Random Alert:
On a little random note, I saw the amazing little invention of the "think clouds" on pinterest and had to create some to include some of the skills that we have been working on. {author's purpose, fix-up strategies, predicting, etc.} As the students independently read during guided reading groups, they can grab a think cloud when they would like to share a strategy that they used while reading. For example, if a student made a connection while reading, they would grab the "Make Connections" think cloud. After reading, I allow each student to quickly share the strategy that they used while reading. This really makes the discussion meaningful for each student. You can click on the picture below to download the think clouds if you would like! :)
Happy Wednesday Friends!
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