Grace Lin

Retelling a story helps readers recall what is happening in the story they are reading or listening to. A retelling usually includes characters, settings, problems, and solutions or the main ideas of the text. It involves telling what is important without telling too much. 

I had the children make illustrations with a partner. The two Grace Lin stories were The Red Thread and Lissy's Friend, both stories have strong problems and solutions. 

The children in my class LOVE both of these books. The Red Thread is a fairy tale adoption story. Lissy's Friend is about Lizzy moving to a new school. 

 During large group time, we talked about the important parts of the beginning, middle and ending of each story.

After working on retelling, we connected this lesson to the CAFE board and listed Retelling the story under comprehension.

We are creating kites based on the Grace Lin's book Kite Flying. I decided to have the class outline with black paint. When the paint dries we hope to make patterns with markers and oil crayons.

Writing Workshop

I use this chart at the start of writing workshop time when all the children are sitting on the rug. I got the idea for this board from
the book The Castle in the Classroom by Ranu Bhattacharyya.

Before we start writing time, I have the children think about where they are at. 

Are you drawing? 

Are you thinking about

your next book? 
Do you need some help?


 Below is a checklist I use to keep
 track of where my students  are  at.

 If I see that many children are just drawing, then I may need to focus my mini-lessons on writing words. 


Everyone wants to share in the Author's Chair so the rule is three kids can share at the end of workshop time. 

This year, my rule is that you can only share once that week.

Status of the Class

Daily 5

We just had a professional development day with Richard Allington. His focus was on struggling readers. His message was that the teacher should know by the second day of kindergarten who does not know their letters. The child who does not know his/her letters should learn them by Halloween.

His emphasis is on the importance of reading Just-Right Books. I was following the model of Sharon Taberski on reading workshop and decided to give the Daily 5 a try. Both styles are similar. The big difference is that the Daily 5 has the listening piece and writing piece. I like the idea of giving my class more choices. I also like how simple the stations are too.