Kevin Henkes
Kevin Henkes is one of my favourite authors of
children’s books. I have read his books
to Jk classes and to grade 8’s. There is
a valuable message, not to mention stupendous vocabulary, in each and every
one! This year I purchased a fantastic
resource, packed with curriculum based activities on TPT, by Hollie Griffith. I wove these activities into my own and
others I have picked up along the way.
I always start with ‘Old Bear’. This is a short story that I use to discuss
seasons.
The next book I do is ‘Kitten’s First Full Moon’. Very cute.
I use this book to introduce retell.
I do a craftivity with the children, using black construction paper,
chalk, and a full moon. Students get 4 ‘full
moons’. One for the title, and one each
for the Beginning, Middle, and End. This
is a great diagnostic to see where your students are at for understanding and
sentence structure.
Next up is ‘Chrysanthemum’ – an all age favourite! From this story you can pull some ‘vivacious vocabulary’. Even though the setting is kindergarten, the mean girls are the same at every age/grade. Thank goodness for Mrs. Twinkle! I start with a picture of chrysanthemum on chart paper and we discuss character traits. The vocabulary in this story leads nicely into syllable lessons – lots of 4 syllable words! We also discuss how many letters in our names, how many vowels & consonants. From the number of letters in their names, students used that number and showed different ways to make that number. The students go on google to find what their names mean. Using Hollie’s packet, we did a comparison activity and a crafitivity of ‘I bloom when....’ and ‘I wilt when....’ We also made a chrysanthemum with petals of adjectives. Attached to this were two sentences: Chrysanthemum was ____________. I know this because _____________. This activity requires students to find evidence in the text. I introduced the ‘Because Clapper’ from WBT. The students caught on quickly and wanted to share their responses orally, using the gestures for capitals, because, and periods. If I could only get them as eager to write it on paper...
Here are some of the activities:
This is their first time learning the "Because Clapper':
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