October: Where the Wild Things Are
To create memorable literacy units for your students can be time consuming, but very rewarding in so many ways.
Reading can take you so many places and exposing kids to great literature is one of the best perks of being an educator.
Let me guide you through creating memorable literacy units for your students.
Step 1: A Great Book
You need one wonderful book to begin creating your memorable literacy unit. One of the first literacy units developed for my first-grade classroom was with the book, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendack.
I just love this book!
Creativity with just this one book was endless for both myself and for my students.
We, of course used this book and other related monster themed literacy in the month of October leading up to Halloween.
Step 2: Curriculum & Standards
Keep your curriculum and standards in mind when creating memorable literacy units and activities in the theme of your chosen book.
For this book, a monster themed literacy unit and activities were created in the following curricular areas:
- Reading
- Writing
- Math
- Creative movement
- Art
- Science
- Social Studies
Multisensory Learning was incorporated into lessons while still meeting the standards. Keep them moving!
Step 3: Student Groupings
Decide what literacy lessons can be done as a whole group, small group, center work, individually or if you were as lucky as we were with your buddies (we had weekly meetings with our fourth-grade buddies). It was wonderful!
Finally, create your memorable literacy unit lessons using your literature, standards, curricular areas and student groupings.
Step 4: Lesson Development
Whole Group Literacy Unit Instruction
After reading the book, Where the Wild Things Are a couple times together, our whole group lesson was to make a classroom book, If I Were a Wild Thing!
Group Discussion:
As a group, talk about what kinds of things you could do if you were a wild thing. Make a list of my student responses on chart paper, so they can see what they said written down into word.
Discuss the writing strategies. Our school used the Six Traits:
- Voice
- Organization
- Ideas
- Conventions
- Excellent word choice
- Sentence fluency
Trait Emphasis:
All strategies were discussed, but at this time of the year we were stressing the writing strategy of, voice. Therefore, the lesson emphasis was on this strategy.
Writing Task:
Students would then go back to their desks and write in their notebooks, If I were a wild thing I would ___________________________________! , filling in the blank with what they would do if they were a wild thing.
Once finished with their draft, they would come and conference with me and discuss their writing strategies and do any editing at that time. They would get their final copy sheet to write down their response and then illustrate their words in a space provided at the top of the page.
Final Product:
When the whole class is finished, I would staple or bind their pages with a front and back cover together. Then, as a whole group again (on a different day), we would read our classroom book, If I Were a Wild Thing together. Each individual child would read their own page. You can just see them shine, when it is their turn!
Each of my created literacy units had a whole group classroom book, students love to read these books over and over, so we kept these books in a bin in our classroom library.
Doesn’t this seem so simple, but so much learning is taking place!
Other lessons for whole group:
- Make Wild Thing Masks with 4th Grade Buddies
- Act out Where the Wild Things Are Story
- Act out If I Were A Wild Thing Classroom Book
- Read other monster themed literature
- Make Monsters Describe with Acrostic Poem
- Science Discussion: The Five Senses Using Your Monster
Grab your Free, If I Were a Wild Thing, Classroom Book Here.
Small Group or Center Time Literacy Unit Instruction
There are so many small group or center time activities that can be done with the monster themed literacy unit depending on what skills or standards you are having your students’ practice. Here are just a few literacy and math activities that were made for my students that can now be purchased in my store:
- Monster Letter & Sound Match
- Monster Build a Word
- Monster Sight Word Match Game
- Monster Patterns
- Monster Roll & Cover
- Monster Counting: How Many Monsters?
- Monster Number, Ten Frame & Number Word Match
- Monster Addition & Subtraction 0-10 Number Sentence Match
- Monster Build a 2 Addend Addition or Subtraction Number Sentence
Grab your Free, Monster Patterns Game Here.
Individually Literacy Unit Instruction
Many of the activities above can be used as individual student activities, especially if there is a certain skill you would like a certain student to practice. Each of the literacy units that were created had individual worksheets for the book chosen.
Another book that I loved to read during our Monster themed literacy unit was, Go Away Big Green Monster! By Ed Emberley.
A little student booklet, Go Away Big Monster was made to go with this book. This little eight-page booklet has students practice color words. They would trace the color word on each page and then color the monster the correct color.
After completing the booklet, students practice reading the booklet to themselves and then two other people in the class. They would also read the booklet to their 4th grade buddies when we got together again.
Again, a very simple activity, but with a lot of educational power behind it.
Other lessons for individual students:
- Monster Letter & Sound Match
- Monster Build a Word
- Monster Patterns
- Monster Counting: How Many Monsters?
- Monster Number, Ten Frame & Number Word Match
- Monster Addition & Subtraction 0-10 Number Sentence Match
- Monster Build a 2 Addend Addition or Subtraction Number Sentence
Grab your Free, Go Away Big Monster Student Booklet Here.
If you want to find other themed resources or literacy units, just check out my store, The Teaching Scene by Maureen!
To read about a simliar topic, check out my blog post, “Why Use Thematic Units?”
