January Theme: Organization
Happy New Year! Over the next five months (and last month!), I will take time to focus on picture books that you can use with each of the Six Traits of Writing. Each month will be dedicated to a new trait.
This month’s theme is Organization. How can we use picture books to model for students how authors choose to organize their writing?
Recommended Grades: 3-5
A House Is a House for Me is a fantastically lyrical book written by poet and author Mary Ann Hoberman. This particular book is an ode to all the types of homes one may find, not just for animals, but also for things. The more Hoberman wrote, the more she found “out of the box” ideas for homes.
Lesson idea: Read aloud this book and discuss how the author organized the book into a rhyme about homes. Discuss how the author thought “outside the box” and found homes for items such as corn, peas, and pickles. Tie this lesson into a classification lesson related to your science curriculum. Discuss how the author classified homes by animals, insects, food, and groups of people. As a class, brainstorm ways you could classify a topic from your science curriculum. Have individual students or groups of students write a piece related to the science topic, organized into a classification unit.
If you are looking for additional resources and ways to teach organization to students, find past posts under the Organization tag.
**Note** I provide these lesson ideas under the assumption that you are familiar with The Six Traits of Writing. If you are not, and would like more information on teaching students about organization or any other six traits component, please feel free to contact me at Dlittle[at]linkstoliteracy[dot]com. I am happy to provide more specific lessons or resources if necessary.
©2011 by Dawn Little for Picture This! Teaching with Picture Books. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.