Author: bchaney

Mini Unit- Identifying Story Elements

Teks: Kindergarten English, Language Arts, & Reading
(6) Reading/Comprehension of Literary Text/Theme and Genre. Students analyze, make
inferences and draw conclusions about theme and genre in different cultural, historical,
and contemporary contexts and provide evidence from the text to support their
understanding. Students are expected to:
(A) identify elements of a story including setting, character, and key events;

Here is the link to the video:
http://youtu.be/c6I24S72Jps

Title:Flocabulary- Five Things (Elements of a Short Story)
Author: Uploaded by Flocabulary Videos
Summary: This video is a fun song that teaches the elements of a short story. It is based on a rap form, which is a reason I was drawn to it at first. Most of the videos or songs that kids learn these days are catchy silly songs that most of the time you only hear whenever your in school. This song is based in a rap form, which might connect more to the kids and have them become more interested in the song and what they are learning. This video is based on 5 elements of a short story which include: Plot, Character, Conflict, Theme, and Setting. As this song goes on, it also gives examples of the types of things that can be included in each of these catergories. It also shows many pictures so the children can connect between the words and the pictures that are appearing in the video.
Instructional Strategy: I think I would use this video in first introducing elements to a story. I would show this video for a few days, but then I would encourage students to try and memorize parts of the rhyme so that when they are trying to remember all the parts and what they mean, they can sing the song in their heads to help them. After viewing this video, students will write in their own words what they think each of these elements mean to them, and for an extension activity possibly use what they learned on an actual story we read in class to recognize the elements in the story.

One Great Text: My Hero, Zero Video

I decided to focus on a fun video that I remember really impacted my learning when I was in 1st grade! I babysit a little boy who it currently 5 about to be 6 and I wanted to show him this to see if he had the same reaction I did as a child. School House Rock was the go to song and video for teachers while I was growing up. Now, teachers rarely show these videos and I have always wondered why this is. This is a reason why I decided to try this video with a child currently in school. There are many videos that are made by School House Rock but I decided that besides the “conjuction juction, whats your fuction” video, the “my hero, zero” video was my favorite and I knew it worked perfectly with Kyle. Here is the video for you to watch for yourselves!

http://youtu.be/zxYsgRsNg2s

Kyle loved this video! He loves watching tv and he loves to dance so I was excited that he loved it! He immediately started smiling and after watching it once he wanted to watch 3 more times to see if he could memorize the words. After memorizing those, he wanted to watch other videos, and although he did not know what he was talking about, we watched the “conjuction, juction whats your fuction” video and he loved the song to that as well.
Some comments Kyle said:
“I wanna watch another”
“Can we dance to other ones?”
“Do you think I could be Zero Hero for Halloween?”
“I like math videos and songs to help me”

So You Want To Be President? by Judith St. George

This book by Judith St. George is a great book to introduce kids to Presidents, as well as history. Because the elections are coming up, I think this would be a great book to read to kids to share that information with them and to let them know how important being the president is. At the end of the book, there is also a list of all the presidents so far and some important details about them. This book provides great pictures by illustrator David Small and fun language for the kids to follow along with. There are funny parts to this book, but also gives the correct information about presidents. Below is a snippet of the book:

“There are good things about being President and there are bad things about being President. One of the good things is that the President lives in a big white house called the White House.

Another good thing about being President is that the President has a swimming pool, bowling alley, and a movie theatre.The President never has to take out the garbage. The President doesn’t have to eat yucky vegetables. As a boy, George H. W. Bush had to eat broccoli. When George H. W. Bush grew up, he became President. That was the end of the broccoli!

One of the bad things about being President is that the President always has to be dressed up. William McKinley wore a frock coat, vest, pin striped trousers, stiff white shirt, black satin tie, gloves, a top hat, and a red carnation in his buttonhole everyday! The President has to be polite to everyone. The President can’t go anywhere alone. The President has lots of homework.”

Joanna Cole: Making Science Fun One Book At A Time

Joanna Cole was originally a librarian eventually turned editor and then became a very successful children’s book author. She is originally from New Jersey and still lives there with her husband. She is mostly known for her writing The Magic School Bus Series, but she also writes many books concerning children life lessons. She is still writing books for her Magic School Bus series, which turned into a television series, as well as movies available. So far she has written over 250 nonfiction and fiction children’s books. Cole uses humor to attract students to science and make sure they have fun learning. This video below is all about Joanna Cole. It explains her works, as well as her biography. This is something you could show your kids before introducing them to the magic school bus series.