Story Mountain

After spending quite some time on the characteristics of nonfiction, it was time to shift the focus back to fiction!

I start out by pulling out my plot mountain chart I made a few years ago.

I pulled out two of my favorite stories to read with my class, The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch, and Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester.

I read The Paper Bag Princess first, and as a class, we plotted out the story (the yellow stickies).

We talked about what each thing meant at the point in the story, and wrote it down.

Next, we did Tacky the Penguin (which my 4th graders thought was hilarious! :) and plotted that story out (the green stickies).

The next day, we added plot (and setting!) to our notebooks.

Now that we had practiced together and discussed it, it was time for some partner practice!

I laid out some books for them to choose from, as well as one of Kelly B.'s  organizers (which I bought WAY back when-in 2012!)

Away we went! I had my students pick their partners (and for the most part, they made good choice partners!), and they read away.

Some groups choose to fill out the organizer independently, and some choose to work together-and that's okay! I wanted them to have a little more practice before I move them to totally independent.

After our partner practice, I wanted to see what they could do by themselves. I passed out Shawn the Speedy Snail (from ReadWorks)

and had them do their story mountain as a reader response in their notebooks.

I loved looking at all their mountains-they were as unique as them!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn