Recounting Fables with The Boy Who Cried Bigfoot!

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

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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 teach!  You get a scripted mini lesson, text dependent questions, a daily task, partner discussion, and an exit ticket.

Excuse these messy anchor charts!  They need laminated to smooth out those edges!  We use these throughout the unit to practice the skills.

I also hang these mini posters with the strategies and skills for student reference throughout the week.  The vocabulary is below, along with the instructional routine I follow.

DAILY INDEPENDENT TASKS

I included these Retell Roads that I love to use when recounting a story.  You can laminate these and the race cars to use a hands-on tool to retell during your lesson or during centers.

You can see the tasks below that students complete each day with the two stories.

The final culminating task is a recount of the focus text that you attach to this Bigfoot craft.

We always end with a comprehension assessment related to the focus standard that you can use as a grade, as well as the culminating task.

We always do a mentor sentence to incorporate our language standards into the read aloud.  Students get their own set and there is a large teacher one that you can work on during the mentor sentence time.

Digital Interactive Read Aloud

Since so many are distance learning right now, I have created a digital version using Google Slides TM.  It will also be included in the October Bundle. These are very similar to the PowerPoint lessons I use in my classroom, but you can assign slides to your remote learners to complete the independent tasks each day.  Just create another copy for each day of the week and delete the slides you don't want students to have.  You can display the slides from the original copy during your live or recorded lessons.  It will keep you on track and ensure you cover all components of the lesson.  Here are a few of the slides included!  There are five days of lessons that include an agenda, learning target, success criteria, learning video and posters, vocabulary cards with tasks, read aloud, daily questions, daily tasks, exit ticket, wrap up, and self assessments for each of the five days!  These are a lifesaver!

Click on any of the images to check out this engaging resource!  There are even more details on each resource's preview, so check them out!