Grade: Elementary

#1970. Denise Fleming's Lunch Ideas

Building Blocks, level: Elementary
Posted Sun Oct 1 05:43:50 PDT 2000 by Debbie in VA (ddharris@erols.com).
LondonTowne Elementary, Centreville, VA
Materials Required: foods from the book, color words on cards, story necklaces, 1/3 yard checked cloth, paints

Day 1: Introduce the various foods in the book at a tasting session. Notice the color of each. Look at the cover and predict who will be a character in the story and what will happen. Notice the nibbled letters. Part way through reading, stop and and confirm their predictions.

Day 2: Prereading--recall the colors in the book. After reading, ask discussion type questions. My class needed to notice the mousehole, the tablecloth, the food stains, identify character and setting, learn the word "nibble," and to think about what the mouse did in his hole.

Day 3: During reading-give each pair of children a color word from the story. As you read aloud, stop on each page with a color word and ask the teams to look and see if they have it. The team brings it up to match to the book and point to the letters as we all say them.

Day 4: Introduce the concept of beginning, middle and end. Identify those parts of the book. Have every child do the beginning and the end, sniffing the food and going to sleep, then reawaking to sniff for dinner. Then use story necklaces of the foods and vegetables in the book and mouse ears for acting out the story. A workshop I went to emphasized how important it was for all to be involved, so I did it this way--I brought in a sheet to be the tablecloth and everyone had a part. Everyone was the mouse at the beginning and end, and two children were the mouse nibbling on the "foods."

Also on this day, make a storybit for retelling by giving each child a little bit of checked material and paint of every color in the book. The children dab a bit of each color onto the cloth and let it dry. As they paint, have them recall the foods in the book that were those colors.

Day 5: Use the storybits made the day before to retell the story. Send them home in bag with a brief description of the story for retelling practice.