What? Trouble in Pumpkintown? Say it isn't so!

I'm super-excited about this week's text of the week.  It's called "Trouble in Pumpkintown" and I wrote it to address a whole bunch of strategies and skills.  (Please note, it's week #5, not #4 as indicated on the copy that came home with the kids.)

Some of these include: 

• author's purpose
• asking good questions to aid with and demonstrate understanding 
• making predictions 
• using schema 
• predicting outcomes 
• and determining importance (e.g. does it matter that the characters in the story are twins?) 
• visualizing (we say, "Make a movie in your mind as you read")  
• Who is telling this story (it's a narrator, not a character in the story itself) 

On Tuesday, we'll look at the ending of the story and talked about what it means to jump to conclusions about situations. I also enjoyed hearing the questions the boys and girls had about the story! 

• Where are the pumpkins??? (this was the big question) 
• Why was the dad visiting his own mother, is she ill?
• Why weren't the kids allowed to participate in the competition in the past?
• What's a pumpkin contest?  

And we're not finished! We still have lots more to discuss! We're going to explore: 

• How do the brother and sister work together?  
• How do each of the family members work to take care of each other?  How are they a little community of their own? 
• What's an animal shelter and what role do they play in our community? 
• Why is our appetite effected by emotions? 
• We'll also look at synonyms (words that mean the same or similar, e.g. tasty and delicious) 

I've encouraged the boys and girls to read the story aloud each night to their toys, stuffies, pets or siblings to help develop their overall fluency.