Five for Friday~Author Study

TGIF, Friends!  How was your week?

This was our first week back following spring break and it was a busy one! Having had a week to relax really made it feel like a long one, but enjoying every single second of our literacy block made it a  little easier to get through!



Our story for the week was Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats. Peter’s such a fun little guy that reading just one story simply would not do! Enter our first author study…..=)  In room 113, we *LOVE* ourselves some Daily 5 and this week, we had five days jammed packed, full of Ezra Jack Keats! We also used materials from The Paisley Primer’s TPT shop to interact with the stories each day. You can check out her fun packet by clicking here.



We read and responded to the stories in a BIG way! Hehee! Toward the end of the week, after having a chance to read a few stories, students worked in small groups of their choice to respond to a story. 

After reading and discussing the book, students completed one of 5 BIG reading response sheets and then presented it to the class as a group. Talk about huge smiles! They were so proud of their work!

Each group did a fantastic job and listening to them retell the sequence of events for each story helped to practice our comprehension skill for this week a number of times in a number of different ways! {Sneaky teacher, getting in all that EXTRA learning….} I know this pic may be a little hard to see in detail. Come back by soon, I’m working on a post to describe the flow of our literacy block that will include a closer view. =)



Thanks to one of my fab parents, we also began using our brand spankin’ new phonics phones during guided reading! Can you say, YAHOOOOOOOO!!! Things just got a little quieter!
 


Well, folks…that’s the gist of what went down in our room this week. Check out the letters below to see why you might want to read a few of Ezra Jack Keat’s books for yourself!