Click, Clack, MooCows That Type should be read previously for enjoyment prior to this lesson.
MONDAY
Metacognition - thinking about thinking
ELA1R6
Materials: 2 cereal bowls, one labeled thinking, one labeled text; one larger bowl labeled “Real reading salad”, and 4 or 5 pieces of red construction paper entitled “text” and 4 or 5 pieces of green construction paper with “thinking”; a challenging book for yourself
E.Q: How do you make a reading salad?
Procedure:
Connection:
1. Begin by telling the children that you are going to play pretend with them. They are the teachers and you are the student. As the teachers, they are going to listen as you read.
2. Pick a book that might be a little challenging. Explain that to the children, but that you’ll do your best as you read one paragraph out loud.
3. Begin reading with expression and at an appropriate rate.
4. After your reading, ask the children to give you a grade.
5. Share with the children that you were not really reading. “There’s something you don’t know about me, though. Sometimes I can fake people out when I read.”
6. Explain that although it may have sounded good, it wasn’t really reading - thinking was missing. Ask if anyone has ever done that before.
7. Tell them that you are going to show them how to think while they read something.
8. Point out the bowls and explain how you are going to use the bowls to help them understand more about real reading. Read the labeled bowls.Explain the concrete example.
“Just like tossed salad might be a mixture of lettuce and tomatoes, reading salad is a mixture of text (printed words) and thinking. Inside the two smaller bowls are little cards. In the text bowl there are read cards that say ‘text.’ These are like tomatoes. In the thinking bowl there are green cards that say ‘thinking.’ These are like pieces of lettuce.”
9. Read the EQ. Explain that together, you and the class, willmake a reading salad while reading, CCM CTT.
Teach:
10. To demonstrate this process, point to the text when you are reading (red slip) and then point to your head when you are thinking (green slip) in order for them to see the difference between your reading and your thinking.
11. Assign one student to place the strips of paper in the ‘text’ bowl with each of your gestures and one to place the strips in the ‘thinking’ bowl with each gesture.
12. Here are some samples of what your dialogue with the students may sound like:
- Point to the text and read for the front cover. “Click Clack Moo Cows that Type.” Student drops in a red card.
- Point to your head. “I’m thinking that this book is going to be about a cow that teaches a duck and chicken to type. This oughta’ be funny.” Student drops in a green card.
- Point to the text and read the first four pages. “Farmer Brown… Sincerely, The Cows.” Student drops in a red card.
- Point to your head. “Wow! If I would get a note from a cow, I think I might faint. Type writers must be like old fashion computers.” Student drops in a green card.
13. Continue this type of modeling this pattern of text-thinking-text-thinking until you reach the midpoint of the book. Send your two students back to the carpet.
Active Engagement:
14. Ask the children to turn and talk for a moment, to reflect on what they’ve just seen. Pull the group back together and ask, “So what are you thinking now?” Listen to comments.
15. Finish the book. Continue pointing to the text when you read, dropping in a red card, but when it’s time to drop in the green ‘thinking’ card, allow some of the students to share what’s going on in their heads.
16. At the end of this book (or any read aloud), there should be more green cards than red.
Link:
17. Now that the children have been doing real reading, recommend that you all have no more fake reading. So today and everyday make a reading salad with your book.
18. Return to EQ and get students’ thought:The two special ingredients are text and thinking.
19. Tell the children their job during independent reading today- to be thinking about what they’re reading.
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Independent Reading (I.R.) – students will read independent books and will be ready to share their thinking while teacher confers
Guided Reading: Leveled texts –
Purpose: to think about what they’re reading and to share their thoughts
Whole Class: Have one/two students come to the share chair and retell the inside and outside character traits of their story or have students partner up and share their character traits to each other.
TUESDAY
Comprehension
ELA1R6 c
Matierials: Click, Clack Moo Cows that Type, What Makes Up a Story? chart (see below), chart of character webs (see below)
E.Q: What makes up a story?
In this lesson, you will start two classroom charts: one listing story elements with brief definitions, and the second depicting the story elements specifically for (CCM CTT)
Procedures:
Connection:
1. Read the E.Q.
2. Remind them of yesterday’s lesson – making a reading salad. Tell them that today, you will teach them one thing they can be thinking about while they are reading.
Teach:
3. Introduce the term story elements.
Writing a narrative story is like cooking. There are certain ingredients you need in order for the story to really be a story. They’re all necessary.” (Give an analogy, i.e., chocolate chip cookies need chips, or not chocolate chip cookies) The word element is a grown-up word for each ingredient of a story.”
What Makes Up a Story?
Character(s) / Setting / PlotEvent #1 Event #2 Event #3
Beginning Middle End / Problem / Solution / Main Idea of the Story
The story was mostly about…
4. Introduce today’s focus: on the element of character using Click, Clack Moo Cows that Type
5. Point out the class chart “What Makes a Story a Story” and define the term character – the people in the story.
6. Reread CCM CTT, pausing along the way occasionally to make sure the children understand story’s big idea.
7. Discuss the main characters.“Who did we meet in the book?”
8. On the second chart, work with the students to make a character web for each character (see below), displaying its personal traits.
9. Discuss the concept of traits as the things that are part of a person’s personality or body.
- For example, you may begin by asking the class to comment on something about the way you look.
- Explain this by suggesting that these are things you know about a person by looking at them – the “outside” traits.
- Then encourage the children to name some things they know about you that they can’t tell just by looking at you – your “inside” traits.
10. Model at least one inside character trait of each character, one at a time.
Active Engagement:
11. Allow the children to partner share another inside character trait of each (one at a time), listen in to the conversations, and add to the character webs.
Link:
12. Remind the children that each of everytime one thing they need to be thinking about isthe inside, not just the outside traits of the characters they are reading.
13. Explain today you will be asking and listening for inside and outside storybook character traits during independent reading/conferencing time.
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Independent Reading (I.R.) – students will read independent books and will be ready toshare story book charactersinside and outside traits while teacher confers
Guided Reading: Leveled texts –
Purpose: to better understand a story book inside and outside storybook character traits
Whole Class: Have one/two students come to the share chair and retell the inside and outside character traitsof their story or have students partner up and share their thinking during their reading to each other.
Extension for writing center:
Have the children make character webs of themselves. Remind the children to include both inside and outside traits.
WEDNESDAY
Fluency
ELA1R4 b
Materials: student clip boards (one per student), pencils, transparency of this weeks’ reader’s theater, copy of reader’s theater(one per student)
E.Q.: How do I read with expression and voice?
Procedure:
Connections:
1. Place the transparency of Click Clack Moo reader’s theater on the overhead.
2. Explain to the children that today they are going to learn about reader’s theater. Make a connection to reader’s theater to a school play, possibly a field trip they may have seen this school year.
3. Talk with the children about the difference between the book and the script - that the writer wrote the script using different parts. (Narrator, characters)
4. Explain that the narrator tells the action of the story - he keeps the plot moving. The characters talk in dialogue.
Teach:
5. Read the EQ and explain the focus of the day’s lesson- to practice reading with expression and voice so we each sound like our character.
6. Model reading from the script (a play) Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Typelike a narrator would sound and then model a few character parts.
Active Engagement:
7. Hand out a copy of the text. Do not assign parts yet… we want the children to read the entire script, not just their lines.
8. Have a shared reading experience (chorally read), pointing to the words on the transparency, as the children look at their printed copy.
9. Choose a sight word the children need to familiarize themselves with. As you read the script again, have the children give a thumbs-up when they see the word ‘his’or the sight word of your choice.
10. Underline the sight word you are recognizing and have the children underline them on their script.
Look for two or three more sight words.
11. Return to the EQ and get students’ thoughts.
12. Ask the children to practice reading their part over and over during their independent reading time.
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I.R. – In heterogeneous groups assigned by you, have students will reread the script…over and over again, while teacher confers with individual students.
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Guided Reading:
Have the students bring CCM CTT script to the group as warm up.
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Whole Class: Have a practice session reading the script aloud.
Extension: Make an extra copy and allow the children to practice at home for homework.
Readers' Theater Script: Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin
Characters:
Narrator (1-9)Cows (1-4)Farmer BrownDuck
Narrator 1:Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin
Narrator 2: Farmer Brown has a problem. His cows like to type. All day long he hears.
All Cows: Click, clack, moo. Click, clack, moo. Clickety clack, moo.
Narrator 3: At first, he couldn’t believe his ears. Cows that type? Impossible!
All Cows: Click, clack, moo. Click, clack, moo. Clickety clack, moo.
Narrator 4: Then he couldn’t believe his eyes. He got a note from the cows.
Cow 1: Dear Farmer Brown, The barn is very cold at night. We’d like some electric blankets. Sincerely, The Cows
Narrator 5:It was bad enough the cows had found the old typewriter in the barn, now they wanted electric blankets!
Farmer Brown: “No way. No electric blankets.”
Narrator 6: So the cows went on strike. They left a note on the barn door.
Cow 2: Sorry. We’re closed. No milk today.
Farmer Brown: “No milk today!”
Narrator 7: In the background, he heard the cows busy at work
All cows: Click, clack, moo. Click, clack, moo. Clickety clack, moo.
Narrator 8: The next day, he got another note.
Cow 3: Dear Farmer Brown, The hens are cold too. They’d like electric blankets. Sincerely, The Cows
Narrator 9: The cows were growing impatient with the farmer. They left a new note on the barn door.
Farmer Brown: CLOSED, no milk, no eggs.
Narrator 1: In the background he heard them.
All cows: Click, clack, moo. Click, clack, moo. Clickety clack, moo.
Farmer Brown: “Cows that type. Hens on strike! Whoever heard of such a thing? How can I run a farm with no milk and no eggs!”
Narrator 2: Farmer Brown was furious. Farmer Brown got out his own typewriter.
Farmer Brown: Dear Cows and Hens: There will be no electric blankets. You are cows and hens. I demand milk and eggs. Sincerely, Farmer Brown
Narrator 3: Duck was a neutral party, so he brought the ultimatum to the cows.
Narrator 4: The cows held an emergency meeting. All the animals gathered around the barn to snoop, but none of them could understand moo.
Narrator 5: All night long Farmer Brown waited for an answer.
Narrator 6: Duck knocked on the door early the next morning. He handed Farmer Brown a note.
Cow 4: Dear Farmer Brown, We will exchange our typewriter for electric blankets. Leave them outside the barn door and we will send Duck over with the typewriter. Sincerely, The Cows
Narrator 7: Farmer Brown decided this was a good deal. He left the blankets next to the barn door and waited for Duck to come with the typewriter.
Narrator 8: The next morning he got a note.
Duck: Dear Farmer Brown, The pond is quite boring. We’d like a diving board. Sincerely, The Ducks
All: Click, clack, quack. Click, clack, quack. Clickety, clack, quack.
THURSDAY
Phonics and Vocabulary
ELA1R3 e; ELA1R5
Materials: transparency of the reader’s theater, Frayer Model with text lifted sentences and vocabulary words already written:impatient, furious; a copy of each child’s highlighted part (an extra for home?)
E.Q. How does the knowing the meaning of a word help me use appropriate expression?
Procedures:
Connections:
1. Explain to the children that contractions our in our everyday reading, our speech, and even in our R.T.
Teach:
2. Place this week’s script on the overheadand discuss the word“couldn’t”– how to identify a contraction, etc. (Lines: Narrator 3 & 4)
3. Discuss how contractions are formed, write the two words that make the contraction couldn’t on the board.
Active Engagement:
4. Show the children‘we’re’ of the script (Cow 2’s line).
5. Ask the children to turn to a partner and discuss the two words that make up the contraction ‘we’re.’
6. Listen in on the conversations and then pull the group back. Share the correct answer and write the two words that make we’re.
7. If necessary, follow the same procedure for we’d (Duck’s line).
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1. Recap yesterday’s lesson - to read with expression and voice.
2. Explain that as you heard the script being read, you noticed there were some key (vocabulary) words thatare important to understand because they tell how to expressor say some of the lines in the story.
3. On chart paper,following Frayer Model, discuss the following vocabulary words.
*impatient, furious
5. With this new knowledge, go back and model rereading the section, with the key vocabulary, using the appropriate expression. Hand out a new copy of the script with the ASSIGN PARTS AND have the child(ren) echo your reading.
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FRIDAY
Listening, Viewing, and Speaking
ELA1LSV1 e
Materials: Each child has a copy of their highlighted script
E.Q. – How do I use my voice so that my audience can hear me?
Procedures:
1. Explain how an actor has to project his voice to keep his listeners attention.
2. Explain how an actor must listen and follow along with the story to know when his part comes in.
3. Have the class perform the reader’s theater of Click, Clack Moo Cows that Type
4. After the presentation, have students answer the essential question.
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I.R. – Students read independent books while the teacher confers with students.
Guided Reading:
Whole group: Have the children discuss likes and dislikes about reader’s theater.