Mike's Good Bad Day - Lesson Plans

Mike's Good Bad Day
Level I

About the Book

Text Type: Fiction/Realistic
Page Count: 12
Word Count: 210

Book Summary
Many things go wrong during Mike's day, both at home and at school. Every time something bad happens, someone helps him out. Mike discovers that it makes him feel good when others help him, so he learns to be helpful to others. Pictures support the text.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

Connect to prior knowledge

Objectives

Use the reading strategy of connecting to prior knowledge to understand text
Identify cause and effect
Discriminate final long /e/ vowel sound
Identify y as a vowel
Recognize and use suffix -ed
Identify and locate examples of onomatopoeia

Materials

Book -- Mike's Good Bad Day (copy for each student)
Chalkboard or dry erase board
Cause and effect, open vowel y, suffix -ed 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: bad, good, his, need, said, that, was, you
Content words: breakfast, carving, clumsy, festival, library, pumpkin, thanks, tripped, wrong

Before Reading

Build Background

Ask students if they have ever had a bad day. Invite students to share their experiences.
Discuss how people often feel when they have a bad day, and whether things that seem bad at first can turn out to be good.

Book Walk

Introduce the Book

Show students the front and back covers of the book and read the title with them. Ask what they think they might read about in a book called Mike's Good Bad Day. (Accept all answers that students can justify.)
Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Connect to prior knowledge

Explain that good readers make connections between what they already know and new information they read. Remind students that thinking about what they already know about the topic of the book will help them understand and enjoy what they read.
Model connecting to prior knowledge using the information on the covers.
Think-aloud: When I look on the cover, I see two boys. I also see a cup on the floor. The cup is tipped over with some kind of liquid flowing out of it. This reminds me of times when I've spilled things. I've spilled juice on my clothes. Sometimes the juice stains my clothes. Spilling juice is an accident, but it still makes me feel embarrassed and upset. These feelings can cause me to have a bad day.
Have students look at the covers and title page. Invite them to share connections they make to prior knowledge based on these pages.
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: Cause and effect

Explain to students that one way to understand information in a story is to think about what happened and why it happened. Point out that an effect is something that happens, and a cause explains why it happens.
Create a two-column chart on the board with the headings Cause and Effect. Model how to identify an effect and its cause.
Think-aloud: When I read, I think about things that happen and try to figure out the reason why they happened. This keeps me involved in the story and excited about what might happen next. For example, if a character playing on the playground begins to cry, I read to find out the reason why he or she is crying. If the character fell and got hurt, this could cause him or her to start crying. The effect would be crying, and the cause would be getting hurt.
Write this cause-and-effect relationship on the board. Invite students to suggest possible causes for the effect of the character falling down (tripping over a toy, slipping in the mud, being pushed by someone). Write this new cause-and-effect relationship on the board.

Introduce the Vocabulary

While previewing the book, reinforce the vocabulary words students will encounter in the story. For example, while looking at the picture on page 5, you might say: It looks as though Mike checked out too many books. He couldn't carry them all.
Remind students to look at the picture and the letters with which a word begins or ends to figure out a difficult word. For example, point to the word tripped on page 3 and say: I am going to check the picture and think about what would make sense to figure out this word. It looks as though Mike fell over the cat's bowl. When I look at the first part of the word, it starts like /tr/. However, the word fell starts with the /f/ sound, so this can't be the word. I know that when people fall, sometimes it's because they have tripped over something. The word tripped starts with the /tr/ sound. The sentence makes sense with this word. The word must be tripped.
For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words and word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

Have students read to find out what good and bad things happen to Mike. Remind them to think about what happens in the story and why it happens.

During Reading

Student Reading

Guide the reading: Give students their copy of the book. Have them read to the end of page 6 and then stop to think about what has happened so far in the story. Encourage students who finish before others to reread the text.
Model connecting to prior knowledge and identifying cause-and-effect relationships.
Think-aloud: As I read, I thought about the events that happened and what caused them to happen. On page 5, I read that Mike dropped all of the books he was carrying. He was trying to carry too many books. This reminds me of times when I've tried to carry too many things at once. When I do this, I can't grip onto everything and things begin to fall. It seems as though the same thing happened to Mike. Carrying too many books at once caused him to drop them. On page 6, Pam helped Mike carry his books. I know that dropping things can make my day seem bad, but someone offering to help me can make the day turn out better.
Write the cause-and-effect relationship on the board (Cause: carrying too many books; Effect: books fall).
Introduce the cause and effect worksheet. Have students read to page 8. Discuss with students what caused Mike to be unhappy (he didn't have any frosting) and what caused Mike to smile (Jose shared his frosting). Have students write the causes and effects on their worksheet.
Check for understanding: Have students read to the end of page 10. Ask them to write on their worksheet what caused Mike to be unhappy and happy (he spilled his punch, his friend loaned him a shirt). Encourage them to share how they connected to prior knowledge as they read. (Accept all answers that show students understand how to connect to prior knowledge.)
Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to use what they already know about the good days and bad days to help them understand information as they read.

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.

Think-aloud: When I read page 12, it reminded me of times when I have been able to help someone who was having a bad day. It makes me feel good to help someone else. Mike helped his sister just as she helped him earlier in the day.

Have students draw a picture on a separate piece of paper showing one way they connected to prior knowledge while reading. Invite students to share and explain their picture with the rest of the class. Ask students to explain how thinking about what they already knew helped them to understand and enjoy the story.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

Discussion: Review the effects and their causes that students wrote on their worksheet.
Independent practice: Have students write an additional cause-and-effect relationship on the back of their worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.
Enduring understanding: In this story, you read about the bad things that happened to Mike and how his friends helped him. Now that you know this information, how will you react the next time one of your classmates needs help with something?

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Discriminate final long /e/ sound

Say the word clumsy aloud to students, emphasizing the long /e/ sound at the end of the word. Have students say the word aloud and then say the long /e/ sound.
Read page 5 aloud to students. Have them raise their hand when they hear a word that ends with the long /e/ sound.
Check for understanding: Say the following words one at a time and have students give the thumbs-up signal if the word ends with the long /e/ sound: library, party, breakfast, carry, shark, sleepy.

Phonics: Recognize y as a vowel

Write the word clumsy on the board and say it aloud with students.
Have students say the long /e/ sound aloud. Then run your finger under the letters in the word as students say the whole word aloud. Ask students what letter stands for the long /e/ sound in the word clumsy.
Check for understanding: Write the following words that end with the long /e/ sound on the board, leaving off the final consonant y: very, only, funny. Say each word, one at a time, and have volunteers come to the board and add the final y to each word.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the open vowel y worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Grammar and Mechanics: Suffix -ed

Write the words carry and carried on the board. Explain that the suffix -ed is often added to the end of a word to make it mean something that happened in the past.
Ask students what was changed when the word carry became carried (the y was changed to an i, and then -ed was added). Explain that if a word ends in y and there is a consonant before the y, the y is changed to an i before -ed is added.
Check for understanding: Write the words play, cry, and study on the board. Have students add the suffix -ed to each word on a separate piece of paper (played, cried, studied).
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the suffix -ed worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Word Work: Onomatopoeia

Have students turn to page 5. Read the second sentence aloud with students. Explain that the word THUMP is a word that imitates the noise it represents. When authors use noise words, it is called onomatopoeia.
Model saying the word THUMP to students. Have students practice saying the word. Invite students to explain why an author might use these kinds of words in his or her writing.
Check for understanding: Have students find other examples of onomatopoeia used in the book. Invite volunteers to suggest other noise words that could be used to represent sounds.

Build Fluency

Independent Reading

Allow students to read their book independently. 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. Invite students to identify cause-and-effect relationships at home with someone.

Extend the Reading

Narrative Writing and Art Connection
Have students divide a piece of paper into two halves. Have them draw a picture of something bad that happened to them on one half of the paper. Have them draw someone helping them make it better on the other half. Students should then tell a story about what happened and how someone helped them make it better.

Social Studies Connection
Discuss with students kinds of jobs that involve helping others. (For example: Firemen help people who have fires in their homes. Doctors help people who are sick. A teacher helps people learn.) Have students draw a picture of a member of their community who helps others and write a sentence explaining how the person helps others.

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

accurately and consistently connect to prior knowledge to understand text
accurately identify cause-and-effect relationships during discussion and on a worksheet
accurately discriminate words that end with the long /e/ sound during discussion
accurately recognize and understand that the letter y stands for the long /e/ sound at the end of some words
understand and use the suffix -ed during discussion and on a worksheet
understand and use onomatopoeia in writing

Comprehension Checks

Go to "Mike's Good Bad Day" main page