Halloween is one of my favorite holidays to celebrate in the classroom!  I love a good themed party with activities and treats that all tie in together.  I usually do a whole witches' brew theme, but I though a fun twist on that would be with the story, Bone Soup by Cambria Evans .  It's the Halloween version of the folktale,  Stone Soup .  Throughout the week of Halloween, you can use that story as your interactive read aloud, which will then build up to your Halloween party !  I do have a resource for interactive read aloud lessons for that story, which you can find HERE .  I just love that you can tie in your standards while still having lots of Halloween fun!  Let's take a look today at what this amazing Classroom Halloween Party consists of! This post contains affiliate links. Printable Halloween party decorations are included that you can hang on your boards for the week.  There is a Happy Halloween Banner and some signs that have different ingredients from Bone So...
Asking questions is such a tough concept for first graders.  It takes lots of practice, even though they are used to asking questions so much in the real world.  The story This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen is a great interactive read aloud text for asking and answering questions within a fictional text.  The reader is left with so many questions due to the way the story is written.  We practice, with lots of modeling from me, asking and answering questions before, during, and after reading.  We focus on day one discussing what a question is and what the common question words are with this poster below.  You will also find links to a couple of our favorite videos that we use to learn about questions. This Is Not My Hat Google Slides TM This Is Not My Hat Interactive Read Aloud After establishing what questions are, we look at the cover of the book.  I have the below anchor chart displayed and the students have their own copy with them on clipboards on the carpet.  We create questions t...
  The recounting stories standards has a lot packed into that one standard!  Students have to recount not only stories, but fables and folktales, as well.  October is a great month to cover those while also bringing in point of view and comparing and contrasting two or more versions of the same story.  You can check out the whole October unit HERE .  The last week of October is all about Bone Soup , a fun Halloween version of the folktale Stone Soup .  We focus this week on recounting a folktale, but also compare and contrast the two versions.   We will look at the printable version, and discuss the digital Google Slides TM version, as well. The way that I construct my interactive read aloud lessons is to make them super easy to print and prep.  The week before, I print the sticky note text dependent questions, the lessons plans, and the daily tasks.  The daily tasks are all numbered for easy sorting into your daily bins.  I am able to be ready and organized for the following week in ...
  Who doesn't love Creepy Carrots !?!?  These creepy little carrots are following Jasper around, so he thinks.  This is a fun book to add to your October read aloud list.  I love to spend a day on it during the week of Halloween.  It's a fun inferencing activity and craft to complete during your whole group reading one day that week.  There is a lesson plan, differentiated writing activity, and a craft included in this fun resource. You can find the book, Creepy Carrots, by Aaron Reynolds HERE .   (This post does contain affiliate links.) Within the one day lesson plan, I have included a mini-lesson script, text-dependent questions to ask, and instructions on how to complete the writing task. This inferencing activity can be completed in kindergarten, first, or second grades.  I have included differentiated writing printables for each grade level.  You could also use these to differentiate within your classroom.  You will stop at a certain point in the story to have students ma...
Fables are short stories that typically have animals as characters and teach a moral or lesson.  In second grade, readers are expected to recount fables and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.  A Boy Who Cried Wolf if a great fable to begin with when teaching this standard.  We began the week by diving into the traditional version on Epic! Books.  We used this to practice recounting a story and determining its central message.   The Boy Who Cried Bigfoot by Scott Magoon was our focus text for the remainder of the week.  It's a super fun spin on this traditional fable! The Boy Who Cried Bigfoot! Interactive Read Aloud This post contains affiliate links. We have already covered this standard but not with fables.  I have also incorporated determining when characters have different points of view and comparing and contrasting two different versions of the same story. LESSON PLANS There are five days of lesson plans that allow you to simply print and ...