Creating our own Stories!

Allie McAdow

Kindergarten-Language Arts/Writing

Common Core Standards:

W.K.1 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces that tell a reader the
topic or the name of the book being written about and express an opinion or preference about the topic or book
(e.g., My favorite book is ... ).

W.K.2 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts that
name what is being written about and supply some information about the topic.

W.K.5 With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add
details to strengthen writing as needed.

W.K.6 With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish
writing, including in collaboration with peers.

Lesson Summary:

This lesson will allow students to begin learning about many foundational elements of writing a story. With
help they will learn to write a story about a general prompt, focusing on the characters, setting, and actions in
the story. They will then use a "Create Your own Storybook" website to bring their story to life!

Estimated Duration:

The lesson will be completed over a five-day period (Monday-Friday) in 30-minute periods each day.

Commentary:

To begin the lesson, I will discuss with the class as a whole what we will be doing and answer any questions
they may have. Each student will then work individually with myself or a parent helper to write the rough
drafts for their stories. By doing this, the students will have the chance to begin diving into their creativity and
create their own unique story. Throughout the week, the students will work on editing their stories and using
the website to add illustrations and really bring the stories to life, which I think will really keep them engaged.
Instructional Procedures:

Day 1:
For the first 10-15 minutes, I will discuss with the students what the lesson will include and the website we
will be using later in the week. Over the following 20 minutes, they will receive the chance to discuss amongst
each other, or think to themselves about what they will write about. This will give them the chance to really
use their creative thinking skills, as well as work on their verbal communication skills with one another. For
the final 10 minutes, myself and a parent helper will pull a couple students aside to begin helping them type
out their stories (no more than 10 pages consisting of 1-2 sentences each). While working with each student
individually, the other students will continue brainstorming as well as working on learning their sight words
from the coinciding lesson.

Day 2:

Day 2 will be a continuation of the end of day one, whereas students will be taken aside one by one to be
assisted in typing out their stories, and when they aren't working on the writing portion they will be drawing
"sketches" of their books illustrations. It should take the entire 45 minutes to get through the entire class.

Day 3:

Today will begin the use of MyStorybook.com to put their stories together and give the students a chance to
choose exciting illustrations to include in their book. We will spend the first 15 minutes of class going through
the website and discussing how to use it, and We will look at an example storybook I created beforehand to
give the students an idea of what it will look like. The rest of the class, the students will work with myself and
a parent helper to revise and make any changes they want to their story, as well as looking for the perfect
illustration to use.

Day 4:

Students will spend the entire class working on putting their storybooks together, matching their illustrations to
the words on each page. By the end of the day they should have their storybooks completed to be checked by
me.

Day 5: On the final day this week, students will share their stories with the class.
Pre-Assessment:

As a pre-assessment, we will spend some time writing a story as a class. I will give the students a
beginning to build off. We will go around the room giving each student a chance to add a sentence or
two to the story. This will allow me to figure out which students will need more or less assistance/time
to work on writing their story.

Scoring Guidelines:

There will not be any sort of grade for the pre-assessment, it will be solely for the purpose of figuring
out where each student is at with their writing skills.
Post-Assessment:

The post-assessment will be when the students share their story with the class. It will give me a chance
to observe the students speaking abilities, and how well they are able to communicate the point of their stories
with others.

Scoring Guidelines:

There will not be pass or fail, but rather I will take note of which students did well with presenting and
communicating their story, and which students may need more help with their communication skills.

Differentiated Instructional Support

Describe how instruction can be differentiated (changed or altered) to meet the needs of gifted or accelerated
students: Peer tutoring can be a great way for the students to work together and learn how to communicate
their ideas with one another in a more comfortable way. And for those who do not like talking with other
students as much, they can begin by having one on one time with the teacher to gain the confidence they need
to communicate with their peers as well.

Discuss additional activities you could do to meet the needs of students who might be struggling with the
material: Activities involving reciting their sight words, or practicing the recognition of letters and sounds.

Extension
A website that I highly recommend for early-mid elementary age students is https://www.starfall.com/h/ .
Starfall teaches everything from the alphabet, counting, and sounding out words to the parts of the body, and
reading interactive stories! It has something for every student and is a great way to introduce the fundamentals
of different topics. Starfall has many interactive short stories with wonderful illustrations that would be a great
way to provide examples for this lesson.

Homework Options and Home Connections

For homework each week, each student will be required to work on their sight words with a parent or guardian
to ensure they master them as best they can. Each week there will be a worksheet sent home related to the
lesson, whether it be on a specific letter or number set, or learning different sounds (ex. Ch, Sh, Th, etc.), or
words of the week. I strongly encourage parents to set aside some time to work with their student each day,
whether it be going over their homework together, practicing sight words, or reading a book together.

Interdisciplinary Connections

Everything the students learn will be connected in some way to their language arts skills. Whether it be word
problems in math, or researching for science, there will be reading involved in everything we learn. Students
will have many opportunities to apply what they know inside and outside of the classroom.

Materials and Resources:

For teachers Computer

Google account/Google docs
Smartboard

For students Computers

iPad
Google account/Google docs
Key Vocabulary
Introduction, Main idea, Ending/conclusion, Character, Setting, Illustration

Additional Notes

No additional notes