Relationship skills

Self-regulation

Morning Meeting

•  If you use your morning meeting to build your classroom community, this mini graphic about sharing space can be a great conversation starter.

Whole Group Activity

• Another suggestion is to read “The Best Spot” during a class read-aloud. Once you’ve read and discussed the story together, have children act out the different parts.

Watch the Video (10 minutes)

• This video teaches children about the features of a comic, or graphic novel.
• After watching, draw the features of a comic on chart paper. The features in the video are panels, speech bubbles, and thought bubbles. See if children can tell you what each one is for.

Set a Purpose for Reading (5 minutes)

• Open your magazines to the story. Ask: What kind of story is this (a comic, or a graphic novel)? How do they know?
• Tell children they will read about a boy named Ollie and a girl named Ivy. As they read, they can think about the problem and what they should do.

• Model reading the dialogue with expression. Check comprehension as you read each panel.
• Then give children a chance to practice reading with fluency and expression. Choose volunteers for reading each part aloud. Encourage children to read with feeling! Repeat with new volunteers.
• Discuss the Talk It Out! questions as a class. Be sure to call on kids who didn’t get to read aloud.

SEL Focus: Relationship Skills/Writing (10 minutes)

• Let children “finish” the story with What Should They Say?

Phonics (10 minutes)

• The Punctuation Situation skills page allows children to practice finding and identifying end punctuation in the story.