This little fella is Little Batty. He's a bat but he's more of a monkey. He visits our class for the month of October and boy, does he get himself into trouble!
Little Batty has taken over our Morning Message. Each morning, we read a new chapter of Little Batty's story off the Smartboard. He's only 6, but he's fallen in love with Little Betty. We've enjoyed reading about his adventures at the park and we've even helped him write a letter to his beloved Betty.
The other day, Batty received some bad news. It seems that Betty doesn't like the park they play at. The slide there is just not twirly enough. Batty was heartbroken. He thought it meant the end of their friendship. In one short chapter he went from pure joy to singing the blues.
As part of our "What do good readers do" focus for the first few months of school, I asked the boys and girls to write about how Batty's mood changed in the chapter.
I've attached a copy of both the chapter (it's printed right off the Smartboard, so it's not very pretty) and the writing page they needed to complete. As you can see, my expectations were high and the boys and girls did a fantastic job! We call this type of task a "Reading Response Question". Soon, in addition to giving evidence from the text to support their ideas, I'll be asking the kids to also add their opinion or "plus information" to take their writing up a notch.
I had the kids work with a partner for this activity. We'll do this from time to time. I know I'm a better teacher because I partner up with Mrs. Linse, so if it works for me, surely it'll work for the kids! The video is just a one-minute look at how well the kids did working together.
Little Batty's Story
Little Batty Worksheet
Partner Writing (video)
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