The Little Engine That Could – Watty Piper
Character Traits and Themes Grades: 1 and 2
Primary Character Trait
Kindness - Thinking and acting in ways that show you care
Secondary Character Trait
Work Ethic - Working hard and sustaining effort leading to feeling good about a job well done
Basic Need
Love and Belonging – The need for relationships, social connections, to give and receive affection and to feel part of a group
Objectives
The learner will:
· Develop a further understanding of the Character Trait: Kindness
· Introduce Work Ethic (The Little Engine That Could is often referenced in our culture when we are talking about taking on a difficult task, I think I can, I think I can…)
· Begin to develop an understanding of the 5 Basic Needs: specifically, Love and Belonging
· Develop a further understanding of suffixes
· Begin to understand that things aren’t always what they seem to be on the outside
Grade Level Content Expectations
First Grade
R.NT.01.05 Respond to individual and multiple texts by finding evidence, discussing, illustrating, and/or writing to reflect, make connections, take a position, and/or show understanding.
R.NT.01.03 Identify problem/solution, sequence of events, and sense of story (beginning, middle, and end).
R.CM.01.01 Make text-to-self and text-to-text connections and comparisons by activating prior knowledge and connecting personal knowledge and experience to ideas in text through oral and written responses.
Second Grade
R.NT.02.05 Respond to individual and multiple texts by finding evidence, discussing, illustrating, and/or writing to reflect, make connections, take a position, and/or show understanding.
R.CM.02.01 Make text-to-self and text-to-text connections and comparisons by activating prior knowledge, connecting personal knowledge, experience, and understanding of others to ideas in text through oral and written responses.
R.WS.02.10 Use syntactic and semantic cues including reading context; picture clues; prefixes re-, un-; and suffixes -s, -ed, -ing to determine the meaning of words in grade-appropriate texts.
Resources
Trade Book: The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
Other Trade Books:
Burton, V.L. (1943). Katy and the Big Snow
Burton, V.L. (1939). Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
DeSeve, R. (2007). Toy Boat Philome
Estimated Time Parameters
One day More than one day Mini-unit
Introduction
As a whole group, show the students the cover of The Little Engine That Could. Tell them they are about to hear a story about a little train. Discuss the following questions with the students before you read: Have any of you ever been on a train before? Have any of you ever seen a train before? Do any of you know where the engine on the train is located? Can any of you name things that a train carries? Can people ride on a train?
Instruction
Read aloud the book, The Little Engine That Could. As you read the book, discuss the problem the little train has in the book. When you have finished reading, ask the students if they can think of other ways the little train could have solved its problem.
Activity Ideas
Suffix Finder
Advanced Preparation: You will need more than one copy of this book for this activity.
· Review with the students what a suffix is.
· As a whole group, write some words with suffixes on the board and have the students identify the suffix on each one.
· Next, put the students into groups of two or three and give each group a copy of the book.
· Pass out a copy of the attached suffix sheet to each group.
· Go over the example on the page, and have students work together in their assigned groups to find as many other examples as they can throughout the book.
· When finished, have students turn their completed papers in to be graded.
Class Meeting – Kindness
Start off the class meeting by reading the definition of kindness. Kindness is thinking and acting in ways that show you care. Ask the students if they thought the Little Blue Engine was kind to the little train in the story. Ask the students how everyone in the book felt after the Little Blue Engine helped.
Define: What does an act of kindness look like?
Personalize: Tell about a time when someone was kind to you? How did that make you feel?
Challenge: Do you think it is possible for someone to be kind all the time? Why or why not?
Perception Activity
*Advanced preparation: You will need to have a variety of photographs or pictures cut from magazines for this activity. I suggest laminating each one so that you can use them again in the future. Try and have enough so that each student can pick two or three during the activity.
Discuss with the students that although the engines in the book looked new or strong, many of them were not very nice to the little train. Tell the students that just because something looks good, it doesn’t always mean that it is.
· Have the students stand in a circle around one or two tables depending on the number of students you have.
· Next, spread out all of the pictures and photographs you have laminated.
· On another table in the room, display a ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ sign on opposite ends.
· Instruct students to look through the pictures, and to choose two pictures to put in the piles on the other table with the ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ signs.
· When each student has placed his or her pictures into the piles, have the students return to their seats.
· Finally, go through many of the pictures and tell the students something they may not expect to hear about that particular item. After you have talked about the picture, ask the students if they would like to move it to a different pile. Example: A student placed a picture of a candy bar in the ‘like’ pile. When you pick up the picture, you tell students that this candy bar has been taken out of the bottom of a dumpster. Ask the students if their perception of the item has changed now that they know more about it.
· When you have gone though the pictures, emphasize to the students that sometimes we look at others and think that they can’t do something because of the way they look. We need to always encourage each other to do the best that we can.
Love and Belonging Activity – Musical Circles
This activity is designed for students to share their special strengths and talents with each other. You can continue this activity for as long as you see appropriate for your group. Have students stand up and randomly move around the room while you play some energetic music. Encourage them to dance around the room is they so desire. When the music stops, they are to freeze. Then direct them to turn to the nearest person; this will be their partner for the activity. Once they are in a pair, give them a topic to discuss, give them a time limit (1-2 minutes), and repeat the activity, making sure they pair with a different person each time the music stops. Here are some suggested topics to discuss.
· Tell about a time when you worked really hard at something.
· Name a special talent that you have that no one else knows about.
· How do you like others to treat you?
· What subject in school are you really good at?
· What games could you teach others to play at recess?
Morning Meeting: Work Ethic and the Little Engine That Could
Explain that the book has been around for a long time, and people often reference the story when they are talking about taking on a difficult task (I felt like the Little Engine That Could when I was removing the wallpaper from my kitchen: I think I can, I think I can, I chanted to myself as I scraped).
Give the definition for Work Ethic: “working hard and sustaining effort leading to feeling good about a job well done”.
Some questions to discuss:
· Tell about a time you worked really hard at something. How did it feel to accomplish the task?
When is it important to do a job well?
· When do we want to do a job well?
· Do we always need to do our best?
· What would our lives/classroom be like if we always did our best?
· What can we do when someone in our group isn’t doing their best?
If you have a classroom constitution, challenge the students to come up with an appropriate symbol for work ethic.
Evaluation/Assessment
1. Successful completion of the suffix sheet.
2. Accurate responses in the class meeting can serve as an understanding of kindness.
3. Working together in the Musical Circles activity can serve as an understanding of love and belonging.
Names of Group Members: ______
The Little Engine That Could
Suffix Activity
As you look back through the story, write down all of the words that you find with the following suffixes in the correct column. An example has been done for you. Underline each suffix.
-s -ed -ing
tracksDeveloping Character Through American Literature The Little Engine That Could
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