Sunday, March 11, 2012

Yee-Haw!

Sorry for being MIA lately... I got hit with the flu and then was put in charge of the school dance... my son started playing soccer... and life just got busy. But I am back and eager to share that I am on Spring Break and it is raining outside. I love yucky, rainy days. They are the best... but back on to our topic...

It is Rodeo time here in Houston. During this time of year, my district's scope and sequence states that we are to be learning all things about Texas. I personally love this time. I like pulling out the southern Texan twang with a few fun read alouds.

The reading skill of the week was Plot. I pulled out 2 of my favorite Western Cinderella stories.

 

I always have so much fun with these stories. The kids enjoy them too! The boys especially love Bubba's version. We started out the week by reading Cindy Ellen first. We charted the plot of the story by using the "Somebody Wanted But So" method inside of a boot pattern that I found in my files and traced. (I am not the best at drawing on my own but I am an excellent tracer!) 

 
 The next day, we read about Bubba and charted his plot also on a cowboy hat (but I forgot to take a pic of it). After charting the plot of both stories, my students on their own (so proud) began making connections on how the stories were the same and how they are different. I then pulled out my Venn Diagram pocket chart and we wrote ideas on boots from Carson Dellosa.

 
 Then the students used a graphic organizer to compare and contrast the two stories. I highly recommend purchasing this book from Scholastic .


In my writing center, students traced a cowboy and created their own cowboy. They then had to fill in the answers to sentence stems that were available in a pocket chart by the writing area. (I am a pocket chart junkie.) 


Thanks again for reading my blog! Please pin and share to your heart's desire. Also, please tell people about my blog. I would love to have more followers. :) I hope to post more ideas this week and hopefully a few freebies! 

Happy Spring Break!