Tableaus for Retelling a Story

Henry and Mudge and the Sparkle Days
We read this story then created tableaus to go along with retelling it. We learned how to use a Sombody---Wanted----But-----So statement to summarize a story. The kids did a great job!

Decorating Pumpkins!

Our class decorated pumpkins today. The class pumpkin will be on display and will be auctioned off at our Sonora Scholar Stomp N Holler on 10/24. Every child helped decorate this class pumpkin today. Additionally each table group got to plan and decorate a pumpkin for their table. Thanks so much to all the adult volunteers who came today and made our decorating party a success.

Our class pumpkin is of one of our favorite book characters, Franny K. Stein. See the resemblance?

And now we write....with Legos

Here are some pictures as we start our stories we used the Legos for. 

Legos for Literacy

In June, I wrote a grant for Lego Story Starter kits. It was funded through the Springdale Public Schools Education Foundation (hoot! hoot!). The funding for the grant allowed us to purchase 12 kits to be used across second grade. The grant focuses on using the story starter kits to positively impact students reading comprehension and narrative writing skills. For example, students can create the scenes they read about in stories with legos. They could create the beginning, middle, and end. They could show predictions about what will happen. They could create pictures of the problem or the solution. The list goes on. For narrative writing, these tools provide students the opportunity to construct their story before ever picking up a pen. This elicits higher levels of creativity, motivation, and completion of stories. We will of course be tracking student scores to see if the kits make a difference. 

If your child has legos at home, try out some of the ideas listed above to incorporate some higher levels of thinking into your child's play time.

 So after a long process of paperwork, the kits have finally arrived. 

Here we are on Monday unpacking the boxes.

This is Table 4 organizing their kit.

Then today, they were able to use the kits to construct a new ending to a familiar story. The story was Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night which was about a family camping trip. Students had to create an ending to their story that we are going to write about tomorrow. Here are pictures of them all working hard to be creative and focused.

Here are all the endings for the students in our class. Tomorrow we will pass them out and get pencils to paper. I'm sure students are going to have much more creative stories than if we hadn't been able to ue this tool.

After the buliding time, I asked the students to reflect. Yes, legos are fun. Yes, they are a toy you can buy at walmart, but all this week I have been reminding them that we are using them for learning. AS a way to make what we do even more fun and engaging. 

So my question was--how did the legos help you today? Here are some very well-said responses:

Vaughn-"It helps take the story right out of my head. I can see it right there in front of me."

Alissa-"It helps us come up with many more creations."

I will continue to add pictures as we use this tool throughout the year. Keep checking back and ask your child how the legos are helping them at school.