“Maps, Clouds and Missing Snacks” Week 31 First Grade

The Case of the Missing Snacks (Fiction, Level 4) by Myka-Lynn Sokoloff

Types of Maps (Non-fiction, Level 4) by Mary Dodson Wade

Looking at Clouds (Non-fiction, Level 4) by Susan Ring

 

 

 

This week we read about a group of students who kept losing their snacks and the unlikely culprit who took them, and we also learned a lot about all sorts of maps and the messages in the sky from clouds. As usual, we enjoyed them all, but our favorite book was Types of Maps because our family needed several different types of maps this week as we left on a very long road trip. Also, we stopped at several military museums this week as well and were able to see the different types of maps used in each conflict.

The activity I want to highlight this week is the Pre Reading Comprehension and Structural Analysis for The Case of the Missing Snacks (steps 4 and 2B). Through the following questions and guidance in these two steps we were able to talk about the mystery genre: What is the title of this book? What do you think this title means? Look at the title page. This is a sign made by the students: “Help us solve this mystery. Snacks are missing from Mr. Lee’s classroom. Witnesses wanted!” These are mystery genre words: case, proof, solve, clues, suspects. This discussion was especially helpful for my first grader to help him understand how mystery books sound different from fairy tales, non-fiction, and other types. It helped him realize that the class was trying to figure out something, which is common in the mystery genre.

For more information about the AlphaSkills Read with Sarah curriculum and our family, see the AlphaSkills Blog Introduction.