Animals! Animals!

Next week my kindergarten students will be enjoying a wild week of Eric Carle! He became a class favorite early on this year and so we decided to dedicate some exclusive time to his books. My class loves reading and rereading his books, and they lend themselves nicely to informational texts, as well. I love watching them read them to each other (especially when they mimic the comments that I say to the class) One of his books, Animals! Animals! is a class favorite and we choose animal poems we love from the book and then read non-fiction texts about that animal. Sometimes I read the poems, omiting the animal's name from the text and they try to guess what animal I am talking about....they never stop thinking that this is hillarious. I actually have several students this year who prefer non fiction texts to anything else...my kidwatching student is almost exclusively interested in animals and we read ALOT of animal books to help him feel connected to our class.

The class has also begun to act out Does a Kangaroo have a mother too? and will be performing the play for Mother's day. Reader's Theater is so much fun to incorporate in class. Students are able to become an active participant and they feel connected to the text in a more personal way. It was actually one component of the District adopted literacy program that I agreed with. Are there any other stories that you have used in your classrooms that have made for a successful readers theater?

It is so important to expose children to all types of literature through the use of repeated interactive read alouds. Poetry, informational texts, fictional storybooks, and students' own writings are daily literacy experiences in my classroom and they are my favorite parts of the day!