This is a guest post by blogger Laureen. If you like what you see here, you can check out her blog, Teach with Laughter, for more of her writing.
Hello Everyone! It’s Laureen visiting from Teach With Laughter. As a huge fan of Joy Cowley, I am so excited to be here! I have taught kindergarten and grade one for the past twenty-two years, and Mrs. Wishy-Washy has always been one of my favorite read-alouds, so you can imagine my excitement when I found out that there are leveled books too!
Here’s a peek at a few of the books I’ve been using in my classroom the past 2 weeks.
These books are leveled G and I. I have one copy of each book, which makes them perfect for "reading to self," "reading to someone," or for a read aloud.
I chose to use these books for "reading to someone." I had the students read together with a particular focus on using expression. A few of them even counted how many exclamation marks there were in the book they were reading.
We’ve been doing a lot of talking about story elements including characters, setting, story order, problems and solutions. Using a retell spinner is perfect for this.
To use this activity students use a paper clip and pencil to create a spinner, they spin the spinner and tell their partner all about the story element they landed on.
You can download this spinner for free at the bottom of the page! I hope that you enjoy this story elements activity! Come back to visit soon to learn about more ideas of how I use Mrs. Wishy-Washy in my classroom.
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Laureen is a grade one teacher in Canada. She has been teaching kindergarten and grade one for 22 years, has two children, and enjoys creating hands-on learning activities for her classroom. You can read about more of her activities at her blog Teach With Laughter.
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To learn more about the Joy Cowley Collection, click the series highlights image below to download an information sheet with key features. To get today's free activity download, click the image of the spinner below!
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