Kevin Henkes Author Study

This is the one I wait for!  We begin this week with a new author's study.  For the next month or so we will be exploring the works of my all time favorite author, Kevin Henkes.  You may be familiar with some of Henkes' more popular works like Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse (in my opinion, the "perfect" children's book) and Julius, Baby of the World.  We'll read about the indomitable Lilly; fearless Sheila Rae, timid Owen, anxious Wemberly, naughty Wendell, and a host of other mouse characters whom Kevin Henkes features as the main characters in so many of his stories. 

But, apart from his charming "mouse" books, which are themselves absolutely delightful, Kevin Henkes has written and illustrated some of the most beautiful children's books in the world.  Students will be learning about Kevin Henkes as a person and how he uses his own life experiences to enrich and influence his writing.  Our study will focus on such topics as:  author's message, character traits, text-to-text, and personal connections.  We'll turn some of Kevin Henkes' narratives into scripts and act them out in "reader's theater" where students will get a chance to make props and scenery, and students will also have the chance to write a "literary review" of their favorite Henkes book.  I hope all my students will end up loving Kevin Henkes' stories just as much as I do.  You can check out Kevin Henkes' great website here.

As we begin our author's study, we also are in full assessment mode!  I am currently conducting the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) on all students to determine independent and instructional reading levels.  These levels will be used to help place students into second grade classrooms and will be used to aid their second grade teachers in placing students into guided reading groups.  Tests include students reading an unfamiliar text (called a "cold read"), making predictions, retelling the story, and in some cases doing some written extensions to the texts.  Students are also timed to assess fluency.  The DRA is a very low key assessment for students.  Since they are so used to reading with me in guided reading groups and answering the same kinds of questions that are found on the DRA, they usually aren't really aware that they are being tested at all.

This week we will begin a unit in Writer's Workshop on poetry, which I expect to be a lot of fun!  Students will learn about rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and other poetic conventions.

If anyone would like to bring in a box of tissues to share with our class, it would be most appreciated.  Allergy season has hit our room big time; we have lots of runny noses!

Many students are also running low on pencils (or have none at all).  Please make sure your child has at least two pencils to bring to school.