Day 45


BEAR SNORES ON, written by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Jane Chapman, is a fun read. I picked this selection because I am working on phonemic awareness. I know, second grade seems a little late to be working on these skills but after seeing fall benchmark assessment results, I know I have to spend some time on it. This story is perfect for teaching rhyming. I read it aloud to my class and dropped off at the end of each line, allowing my students to fill in the blanks with an obvious rhyming word and they nailed it. After that, we took each rhyming word and generated words that rhymed. I know this is a very basic activity but sometimes I find myself slipping away from basic and effective. I start re-inventing the wheel and then, inevitably go back to what works

Spending so much time on rhyming has been working for my students. Today, a student of mine came across the word "lumber." She was struggling to work through it and I was in no rush to rescue her. All of the sudden, she said, "Oh, this ends like number. The word must be lumber. Number and lumber rhyme." I will tell you, I almost fell out of my chair!

BEAR SNORES ON is also funny to act out. I love second graders. They are such hams and get into their roles because they are still too young to care about what others think. There are lots of science connections here too and you could also easily use this story to compare and contrast the habits of real bears and the bear in this story.

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