Flipping for Fall Mentor Texts

Welcome to Reading Royalty! I'm so glad you're stopping by The Reading Crew's blog hop! 

Fall is my favorite time of year! I love the cooler weather, beautiful New England scenery, and pumpkin spice everything! We're getting back into the swing of things at school and diving into some fabulous fall themed mentor texts. 

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

by Linda D. Williams is the mentor text I chose to focus on. This is one of my absolute favorite Halloween themed books! It's about an old lady who goes for a walk in the woods and is confronted by different scary items that follow her on her way back home. I use it in grades K-2 to work on sequencing. 

The Little Old Lady Who is Not Afraid of Anything is such an engaging book with lots of opportunities for beginning readers to play a part in the read aloud! 

My favorite part of this book is that each scary item that follows the little old lady is accompanied by it's own sound. For example, when she encounters the first item in the woods, the text states: "The shoes went CLOMP, CLOMP." These items and their sounds build on one another and repeat throughout the story. The sequence of each item that follows her home is very clear and the repetition is a perfect way to practice sequencing with young students. 

There are a lot of ways you can use this book to help young students with sequencing. I love to teach using multi-modalities as much as possible and The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything allows me to do just that! Using movement, sound, and props will keep students engaged and help them remember the sequence of events. You can have students join in while you're reading the repetitive text or (and the little kiddos love this) you can come up with a movement to go along with each sound. 

Companion Freebie

There are a lot of ways you could use these companion activities! 

During reading, you can use the phrase cards and or picture cards to engage students. Laminate, glue on to craft sticks, and pass out to students to hold while you read the story aloud. When students hear their phrase or the name of their item, they can hold it up and repeat the phrase.                                                                                           After reading, you can use the phrase and picture cards as a matching activity by matching the picture to the correct phrase from the book. They can also be used to get the class up and moving to practice sequencing. Place your students into groups of six, give each student a picture card to hold, and have them work together to sequence the pictures. Extend the activity by having each student retell his or her part of the story. 

A differentiated printable activity is also included. One version includes traceable phrases from the story in order. The other is blank. Students can trace, cut and paste, or write the phrases on their own depending on their ability level. For both activities students cut, sequence, and paste the picture cards in the numbered boxes to retell the events in the story. 

If you like this freebie you may also enjoy these other Halloween activities: 
Trick or Treat Graphing $1 Deal
Descriptive Writing: Create a Monster $1 Deal
Halloween Literacy Centers

Did you catch my mystery word?  If not, it's clomp. Now it's time to hop to the next stop! Thanks for visiting my blog!

Happy Teaching!   
Michaela