I Count 100 Things
Level D 

About the Book

Text Type: Nonfiction/Factual Description
Page Count: 12
Word Count: 65

Book Summary
I Count 100 Things explores ways in which common items such as gumdrops and marshmallows can be manipulated into different objects, such as a rainbow and an igloo. Pictures and repetitive text support the early reader.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

  • Visualize

Objectives

  • Use the reading strategy of visualizing to understand text
  • Identify main idea and details
  • Discriminate rhyming words
  • Identify and write words that rhyme with make
  • Recognize the purpose of an exclamation point for punctuation and expression
  • Identify and segment compound words

Materials

  • Book -- I Count 100 Things (copy for each student)
  • Chalkboard or dry erase board
  • Index cards
  • Main idea and details, rhyming patterns, exclamation point, compound words worksheets

    Indicates an opportunity for student to mark in the book. (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are reusable.)

Vocabulary

  • High-frequency words: all, at, can, I, look, make, these, things, what
  • Content words: blocks, count, gumdrops, house, igloo, marshmallow, paperclips, rainbow

Before Reading 

Build Background

  • Gather a total of 100 small objects from the classroom (pushpins, paperclips, and so on) and place them in one pile. Ask students to estimate how many objects are in the pile.
  • Practice counting the objects by ones to 100 with students.
  • Ask students to think about what they could do or make with the items. Accept all reasonable responses. Point out that the collective object is larger than the parts from which it was made.
Book Walk

Introduce the Book

  • Show students the front and back covers of the book and read the title with them. Ask what they might read about in a book about counting 100 things.
  • Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name).  
  • Discuss the repetitive phrases I count 100 and What can I make? Explain that these words repeat throughout most of the book. Ask students to identify which words come after 100 on page 4 (paper clips). Remind them to use letter and picture clues to identify words.

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Visualize

  • Explain that good readers often visualize, or make pictures in their mind, as they read. Readers often use what they already know about a topic to make the pictures in their mind.
  • Model how to visualize using the picture on the front cover.
    Think-aloud: I see many gumdrops on the cover. Gumdrops are many different colors. What colors are gumdrops? I remember from our discussion that one of the sentences in the book is What can I make? When I think of all these colors, I picture a flower made out of gumdrops.
  • Show students a transparent bag filled with 100 gumdrops. Ask them to visualize other objects that would be easy to collect in a group of 100 (dimes, paper clips, and so on).
  • As students read, encourage them to use other reading strategies in addition to the targeted strategy presented in this section. For tips on additional reading strategies, click here.

Introduce the Comprehension Skill: Main idea and details

  • Explain that every book has a big idea, which is the most important thing the book is about. For example, a book about a dog may talk about feeding, veterinary care, and training, but the main idea is all about a dog.
  • Explain to students that one helpful way to find the main idea of a book is to ask themselves: What message is the author trying to tell me with this book?
  • Explain that the main idea of this book is What I Make with 100 Things. Write What I Make with 100 Things on the board. Point to each word as you read it with students.
  • Model how to identify details.
    Think-aloud: I know that every book has details that help explain the big idea. I know that the story is about all the things I can make with 100 of something. The front cover shows a bunch of gumdrops. When I look at those gumdrops, I visualize a colorful flower. Do you think I can make a picture of a flower with 100 gumdrops? (Make a gumdrop flower, counting to 100 with students as you see each gumdrop.) I can make a flower with 100 gumdrops! Since this helps to explain the big idea, it might be a detail in this book.
  • Show students the back cover of the book. Ask them to identify the objects in the picture (blocks). Have students visualize what they could make using 100 blocks. Invite students to draw what they visualized on a separate piece of paper. Encourage them to share their drawing with the class.

Introduce the Vocabulary

  • Cut out the pictures from page 4, 6, 8, and 10. Place the picture from page 4 on the board. Ask students to identify the objects in the picture. Write the word paperclips on an index card and place the card under the picture on the board. Read the word with students.
  • Ask students to explain what paperclips are used for (to hold papers or other items together).
  • Continue the process with the pictures of the gumdrops, marshmallows, and blocks. Write the word for each group of objects on an index card and read the word with students. Ask students to explain how each item is used. Shuffle the index cards. Show students each word, one at a time. Have volunteers match the word with its picture on the board, saying the word aloud.
  • For tips on teaching high-frequency words or word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

  • Have students read to find out what objects are made from groups of 100 familiar items. Encourage them to count the items in each group from 1 to 100. Remind students to stop and visualize, or picture in their mind, the details of the story as they read.

During Reading 

Student Reading

  • Guide the reading: Give students their copy of the book. Have a volunteer point to the first word on page 3. Read the word together (Look). Have another volunteer point to the last word on the page (things). Point out where to begin reading on each page. Remind students to read words from left to right. Point to each word as you read it aloud while students follow along in their own book.
  • Ask students to place a finger on the page number in the bottom corner of the page. Have them read to the end of page 5, using their finger to point to each word as they read.
  • Model how to visualize.
    Think-aloud: As I read each page, I created a picture in my mind of what I can make with 100 things. For example, on page 5 I pictured someone linking paperclips in a chain and then circling the chain around to make the paths in a maze. What do you notice about some of the paths in this maze? (They are curved, some are blocked.) In my mind, I pictured going through the maze, trying to figure out the correct path to take to exit the maze. Picturing this helped me to remember the maze.
  • Review the main idea of the book, What I Make with 100 Things. Ask students to explain whether a maze is a detail that supports the big idea of the story and why (yes, 100 paperclips make a maze).
  • Introduce and explain the main idea and details worksheet. Write the words paperclip maze on the board. Have students write the words and draw a picture of a paperclip maze in one of the boxes on their worksheet.
  • Check for understanding: Have students read to page 9. Ask volunteers to explain what they pictured in their mind as they read. (Accept all answers that show students understand how to visualize.)
  • Ask students to think about other details that support the main idea What I Make with 100 Things. Have them choose one of the details to draw on their worksheet. Have students locate the word in their book to help them write the name of the object they drew on their worksheet. Ask them to share the detail they drew and wrote about.
  • Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to picture the information in their mind as they think about the main idea and details.

    Have students make a small question mark in their book beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

After Reading 

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

  • Ask students what words, if any, they marked in their book. Use this opportunity to model how they can read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
  • Have students tell what they would build with each of the items on page 12.
    Think-aloud: As I look at the picture on page 12, I think about things I can make. I see something in the shape of a circle with a hole in the middle. In my mind, I picture beads that look like those objects in the picture. If I had 100 of those items, I could make a bracelet. Picturing these things in my mind helped me to better understand and enjoy the story as I read.
  • Ask students to describe a "secret" object using sensory detail clues. Have the rest of the class visualize the object and guess what it is from the clues. Ask students to share how visualizing information helped them to better understand the details of the story.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

    Discussion: Read the big idea on the board with students. Review the details students drew on their worksheet. Invite them to explain why each of the details on their worksheet matches the main idea of the story.

  • Independent practice: Have students complete the main idea and details worksheet.
  • Enduring understanding: In this book, you learned that 100 things were used to build different objects that looked like the real object. Now that you know this information, what objects in your environment would you build with 100 things, what details would you include, and what items would you use to build them? (visual awareness/perception of the environment)

Build Skills 

Phonemic Awareness: Identify rhyme

  • Write the word lake on the board. Read the word aloud with students.
  • Have students turn to page 5 in their book. Read the page to students and have them point to each word as you read it aloud. Ask students to listen for a word that sounds almost the same as the word lake. Have them identify which word in the sentence sounds almost like the word lake (make).
  • Say the word make aloud with students. Ask them to say the word without the /m/ sound (ake). Then say the word lake aloud with students. Ask them to say the word without the /l/ sound (ake).
  • Ask students to identify which part of both words sounds exactly the same (ake). Explain that words that sound the same at the end are called rhyming words.
  • Say the word make aloud to students. Ask them to identify words they know that rhyme with the word make (bake, cake, fake, lake, take, wake).
  • Check for understanding: Say the following words one at a time: take, race, cake, wake, milk, pack, bake. Have students show the thumbs-up signal for each word that rhymes with make. If the word doesn't rhyme with make, they should show the thumbs-down signal.

Phonics: Rhyming patterns (-ake)

  • Write the word make on the board. Have students say the word aloud with you. Ask them to say the word without the /m/ sound (ake). Write the letter pattern ake on the board. Explain that the letters a, k, and e together stand for the sound they hear at the end of the word make.
  • Write the word lake on the board. Have students say the word without the /l/ sound. Ask a volunteer to underline the letters that stand for the sound they hear at the end of the word lake (ake). Remind students that words that sound the same at the end are called rhyming words.
  • Write the letters ake on the board several times. Ask students to identify words that rhyme with the word make, one at a time. Have volunteers come to the board and write the initial consonant to complete each rhyming word.
  • Check for understanding: Say the following words, one at a time: take, bake, lake. Have students write each word on a separate piece of paper.
  • Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the rhyming patterns worksheet.

Grammar and Mechanics: Exclamation point

  • Write the following sentence on the board: I can make a house! Read the sentence aloud with expression.
  • Erase the exclamation point and write a period in its place. Reread the sentence as a statement. Elicit from students how the tone of each sentence is different, based on the end punctuation.
  • Write an exclamation point on the board. Explain that this punctuation mark is called an exclamation point. Point out that another name for the exclamation point is an exclamation mark.
  • Read the words aloud with students. Point out that a sentence with an exclamation point is read with excitement.

    Check for understanding: Have students locate the exclamation points in the book and circle them (pages 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11). Ask students to turn to a partner and read each sentence aloud in two ways: first with an exclamation point and then with a period.

  • Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the exclamation point worksheet.

Word Work: Compound words

  • Write the word gumdrop on the board. Read the word aloud with students. Ask students to identify two words they know within the larger word (gum, drop).
  • Explain to students that the word gumdrop is a compound word. Draw a line to segment gumdrop into gum/drop.
  • Write the word rainbow on the board. Read the word aloud with students. Invite volunteers to find the two small words in the compound word. Then ask a volunteer to segment rainbow into two words on the board.
  • Check for understanding: Write the words lipstick, football, and butterfly on separate index cards. Cut each compound word on the cards into its two individual words. Tape the words on the board out of order. Ask students to come to the board and connect each pair of words correctly to make a compound word. Have students say the word aloud, checking to be sure the word makes sense.
  • Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the compound words worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Build Fluency 

Independent Reading

  • Allow students to read their book independently or with a partner. Encourage repeated timed readings of a specific section in the book. Additionally, partners can take turns reading parts of the book to each other.

Home Connection

  • Give students their book to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Encourage students to share with someone at home what they know about the main idea and details for I Count 100 Things.

Extend the Reading 

Writing and Art Connection
Have students work with a partner to choose 100 similar small objects to draw or glue onto a page to create an object. Provide the prompt I have 100 ___________. I can make a ___________. Below their picture, have students write a sentence using the prompt. Invite students to share their picture and read the sentences aloud to the class. Bind the pages together to create a class book.

Science Connection
Have students make a Sink or Float chart. Provide the items from the book (gumdrop, paperclip, marshmallow, and block) and a bowl of water. Have students predict which items will sink or float. Tally their predictions on the chart. Then test each item. Record the outcome and their observations. Guide students to draw the conclusion that heavy items sink and light items float.

Assessment 

Monitor students to determine if they can:

  • accurately and consistently visualize information to understand text during discussion
  • accurately identify main idea and details during discussion and on a worksheet
  • orally identify and discriminate words that rhyme with make during discussion
  • accurately read and write words that rhyme with make during discussion and on a worksheet
  • identify exclamation points in text; explain their use during discussion and on a worksheet
  • correctly read, write, and segment compound words

Comprehension Checks



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