This is a timely book that never gets old.  Wonderful to use when teach letter writing.

I have not yet used this book, however I would use it to teach narrative elements and also compare and contrast with Disney’s version of Cinderella.

The great thing about this book, is how many strategies can be taught with it:

Make and adjust predictions, use text to confirm, Recognize literary elements, Recognize and explain cause and effect relationships, Cross checking, Flip the sound, Read text as the author would say it, conveying the meaning or feeling, Use punctuation to enhance phrasing and prosody, Tune into interesting words and use new vocabulary in speaking and writing and Use Prior Knowledge and Context to Predict and Confirm Meaning

There is a link to a Lit lesson on the Daily Five/Cafe website

View Lit Lesson

This is one of my FAVORITE books!  I use this to teach inferring.  Click on the link for a lesson plan.

Lesson plan

Great book to use when teaching nonfiction text features.  This book is full of captions, bold words, italics, labels, charts, etc.  The topic grabs and holds student’s attention!

COMPREHENSION:  Monitor and Fix up strategy.  You can create a chart showing the different ways animals carry, protect, and provide shelter for their young.  You can explain that this graphic organizer can help you monitor your comprehension – if they notice that  they haven’t recorded anything in a  page or two, there’s a chance that they missed some key information.

Recognize and explain cause and effect relationships.  The book discusses many different actions that animals take to take care of their babies, all with the effect of keeping them safe.  Talk with the students about the idea that a cause (a crocodile putting her babies in her mouth) can also be an effect (A predator had to cause the crocodile to put the babies in her mouth in the first place).  At the end of the book, Fraser talks about why it is that animals are so keen to protect their young.  This could be used to explore the idea that although there are many smaller causes and effects in the book, they all fit under the overarching idea of protecting young animals.

This is a humorous book about a second grade boy who is learning to read.  It could easily be used to explain cause and effect to students.

Lit Lesson for the Mitten

Cafe Goal COMPREHENSION: strategy USE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE TO CONNECT WITH TEXT

This book is perfect for this generation to use their prior knowledge about technology in order to connect with the text.