The first thing we did was break out the book, "Help Me, Mr. Mutt." On the first day, we simply read the book for enjoyment. We noticed how Mr. Mutt was talking and then how the author used different words when other characters were talking.
Super, quick-I'm trying to stick to this mini-lesson thing. Guys, it's hard for me! :-)
The next day, I wrote little excerpts from Mr. Mutt onto large paper. We read the excerpts and noticed common words that were being used over and over again.
We realized that those words helped tell us who is speaking or telling the story.
After we did the Mr. Mutt activity, the kids got their own little anchor charts. I filled out large ones, while the kids filled out little ones to keep in their reading notebooks.
We really dove into 1st, 2nd and 3rd POV on this day.
We went over the Mr. Mutt letters again and had a LOT of discussion while we filled out our anchor charts.
The next day, I pulled this crazy picture up on the board! They were hooked at this point! It was the PERFECT picture to use to talk about point of view. They all have background knowledge on how to drive someone crazy... especially their parents.
We came up with story after story using this picture. Then, we picked just one story. We told it in 1st pov, then 2nd and 3rd. The kids started to notice how to rearrange their sentences to make them match the point of view.
We spent our entire mini-lesson just talking. They used their mini-anchor charts to remind themselves of key words to use when they were telling their POV stories.
The next day, the kids got their own pictures! I had 6 available pictures and I made 5 copies of each picture booklet. I wanted a variety of stories from the kids. I loved that when the kids got their books, they wanted to get out their whiteboards to brainstorm first! Um... yes, please! If you do this, I highly recommend the whole brainstorming process. It was great to walk around and assess their understanding as they wrote their stories. It was easy to help those who didn't quite understanding too, because they didn't have to erase their whole story from their booklet-really just key words. It really helped it click!
So far, we have written our 1st point of view story to match our picture. After we wrote the story, we got in groups of 5 and shared! The kids gave suggestions and compliments to their peers.
Tomorrow, we will be working on 2nd and 3rd POV stories while using the same picture!
We have a long ways to go to really meet this standard, but we're getting it and it's so much fun!
No comments