Date: March 5, 1997

Grade Level(s): Kindergarten, 1, 2, 3, 4

Subject(s):

• Interdisciplinary
• Science/Meteorology
• Language Arts

Anticipatory Set: The class will reread other weather stories that they have written together.

Goal: The students will incorporate weather into their reading background.

Objectives:

1. The students will interpret the story Snowman , by Raymond Briggs, by creating a class narrative which the teacher will write on chart paper.

2. The students will also practice illustrating the story.

Background information: This lesson would be one in a class theme on weather. Students would have already had lessons about snow.

Materials:

chart paper containing other class stories

chart paper

markers

book, The Snowman by Raymond Briggs

construction paper

art supplies for illustrating

Input: The teacher and students will...

• predict from the cover and the title of the book.
  
• look at each page and describe what is happening.
  
• (The teacher will occasionally say a model sentence that could be later used in the story.)

Modeling: After the book has been read, the students will tell the teacher a sentence for each event in the book. (possibly 25 sentences total) The teacher will then write these sentences on the chart paper as they are dictated from the students. By doing this, the teacher will model left to right construction, letter and word formation, sentences, and correct spelling and punctuation.

Check for understanding: After the entire story is written on the chart paper, the class will read it together.

Guided practice: Each child will recieve one sheet of drawing paper with one sentence of the story written on it. The class will help each child read their sentence.

Independent Practice (Assessment): Each student will then take their paper with the sentence back, to their desks to illustrate. They are to illustrate what the sentence says! The children may illustrate with any art supplies that the teacher wishes to let the students use. These pages will later be collected to make a class book. The teacher should make a cover for the book and put the book in the class library. Students will also have a chance to look more closely at the original, The Snowman, book during freetime.

Closure: Discuss how the class was able to write its own story by carefully studying the pictures and thinking of sentences. Remind students to illustrate the sentence they were given not just make any picture about the story.