Friendship & Retelling GRP Week 2

On week two of Guided Reading with a Purpose we move onto the theme friendship. We need to build new friends within our classroom and learn the right way to treat one another without leaving anyone out. During this week our focus shifts to retelling. Eventually, our retelling will become more detailed. As we begin, we focus on three main parts; beginning, middle, and end.


The featured stories I picked are shown below.
Friendship  & Retelling GRP Week 2
We began the week with a little activity called Guess that Story. I read a beginning, middle and end from the cards I created and they have to guess the story. I have 2 sets, one for Goldilocks and the Three Bears and then one for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. (You can see them below on the green chart) Next, I tell them a very vague beginning, middle, and end which they will NOT be able to guess. This brings up the discussion about retelling and including the most important details.
After the introduction, we begin our first story Peanut Butter and Cupcake.  This story is one of my favorites because it is so funny…lots of puns. I love to discuss the title with the class. I always ask them why Terry Border didn’t call the story Peanut Butter and Jelly. This year one of my kiddos hit it spot on! She said, “That would give the story away!” Once we read the story, we reviewed the characters and setting, went over the discussion questions and then began retelling the story. 
Back at our seats we work on a picture retell. You can see that before cutting out the parts, I read them to the class and we labeled them B, M, or E. Then we glued them in order. We also discuss that the middle is  “most” of the story and will always have more details. For writing, you can see I modeled three sentences as my retell. Then we did our own retells and made either peanut butter or jelly. Also above I have some sorting cards. I always have these on hand for early finishers. They come up to the chart and we do these activities together while others finish up…this keeps behavior problems to a minimum.
On day two we read Nugget and Fang. It is a great story of an unlikely friendship. We focus on never judging a book by its cover.  I love this story, the illustrations are amazing. Below you can see the retelling cards and a fun opposite sort. We also review characters and setting too. I keep the routine pretty similar, children love routines.

For writing, we wrote about how Fang saved the day. We basically retold just the ending of the story. Of course, we had to make Nugget and Fang.

On the third day we read Chester’s Way. This is my very favorite Kevin Henkes story. This story talks about accepting others differences and making new friendships. Also, Lilly is in this story and she is so much fun. Here are a few pictures from this unit. We sorted the different things the characters like in this story since it is a huge part of the story.

Day 4 is a little extra special because we have a yummy treat.  Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun is a story of a little girl who gets picked on by a boy in the class. One day that boy finds himself stuck and Lucy comes and helps to overlook how he has treated her. In the end, she was the bigger person and gained a new friend. It also brings up the idea that life would be boring if we were all same. Lucy loves spaghetti in a hot dog bun.   This was an easy thing to prep for my class. I made 1 box of noodles and added the sauce. I cut the buns in half and warmed it up in a microwave. It was a lot of fun and we did a little tally graphing too.

We also discussed other things that might taste good in a hot dog bun. We created our own ideas and wrote about them.  A little text to self-connection. 
On our final day, we read Do Unto Otters. This story is soooo adorable. We do a little picture and label retell and look closely at some of the key vocabulary. This vocabulary basically sums up the qualities of a good friend. Perfect to end our week on friendship.

As a class we each added a sticky note of what we would like from a friend. We made our cute little otters and they are hung out in the hallway.  
Finally, we ended the week with a fun culminating activity. Students got into groups of three. They picked a book from the week or one that we had read this year. Each person took either the beginning middle or end. Then they presented the story with words and pictures. This was a fun way to celebrate what we had learned plus they were able to work in groups and collaborate.
Here is a sneak peek at some of the fun crafts included. Of course, we don’t have time to do them all. I like to change it up from year to year too.
If you are interested in checking out this unit, click below.
If you would like to look at my entire year-long GRP bundle click below.

Megan

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Hello!

I’m Megan, a first grade teacher and a mother to 7 amazing children. I love to create and collaborate with teachers. When I’m not teaching, I love spending time with my family, baking and playing tennis.

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