The Thanksgiving the Jacks/Other Jacks Built

The Thanksgiving the Jacks Built/
The Thanksgiving the Other Jacks Built
Level J

About the Book

Text Type: Fiction/Realistic/Fantasy
Page Count: 16
Word Count: 404

Book Summary
The Thanksgiving the Jacks Built and The Thanksgiving the Other Jacks Built are intended to be used together. These books use the same words but different pictures to illustrate Thanksgiving celebrated by an all-American family and an alien family. The lesson offers a unique opportunity to show students how a change in setting can change the meanings of words, as well as to provide an across-text connection. Familiar text pattern and repetitive language support readers.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

Visualize

Objectives

Use the reading strategy of visualizing to understand text
Identify setting
Discriminate rhyming words
Identify rhyming words
Recognize and use past-tense verbs
Understand and use the high-frequency words who and whose

Materials

Books --The Thanksgiving the Jacks Built/The Thanksgiving the Other Jacks Built (copy for each student)
Chalkboard or dry erase board
Visualize, rhyming words, past-tense verbs 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: ate, down, that, this, who, whose, with
Content words: built, family, farmer, father, grocer, mother, supplied, Thanksgiving, turkey

Before Reading

Build Background

Ask students to share what they know about Thanksgiving and why it is celebrated. Invite them to tell if and how they celebrate Thanksgiving.
Discuss different traditions and food eaten on Thanksgiving.

Book Walk

Introduce the Book

Show students the front and back covers of the book The Thanksgiving the Jacks Built and read the title with them. Ask what they think they might read about in books. (Accept all answers that students can justify.)
Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the pages (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

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 create the pictures in their mind.
Read pages 3 through 5 aloud to students. Model how to visualize. (Do not show pictures of either book to students yet.)
Think-aloud: When I read a book, I pause after a few pages or after reading a description of something to create a picture in my mind of the information I've just read. This helps me to better enjoy the story. For example, when I read about the turkey that fed the Jacks family, I pictured a large, juicy turkey filled with stuffing. I pictured a mom, a dad, and children sitting around the table smiling and looking at the food.
Introduce and explain the visualize worksheet. Have students draw on their worksheet what they visualized when they heard about the Thanksgiving dinner and the family. Invite them to share what they drew.
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: Identify setting

Explain to students that all stories have a setting. Explain that the setting is where and when the story takes place. Point out that the pictures in a story can help to identify the setting(s) and that these pictures can cause the words to have different meanings.
Model identifying the setting in a familiar story.
Think-aloud: In the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the setting is the bears' home in the forest. When I visualize the bears' home, I see a small cottage in the middle of many trees. If the story's illustrator changed the setting to a large city, the picture in my mind would change to an apartment in a large building. Instead of living in the middle of a forest, I picture a small park full of trees near the apartment. The word home takes on a different meaning when the setting of the story changes from a forest to a city.
Cover the pictures of the story The Thanksgiving the Other Jacks Built. Read pages 3 through 5 aloud to students. Have them draw on their worksheet what they visualized. Invite them to share what they visualized about the setting. Show students the pictures from these pages. Invite them to share how the pictures in the Other Jacks book were different from what they visualized. Point out how the words in both books were the same but the setting depicted in the pictures made the words take on different meanings.

Introduce the Vocabulary

Remind students to look at how a word begins or ends to figure out a difficult word. For example, write the word baked on the board and say: When I look at the word, I see the letters ake. I've seen these letters together in another word I know: cake. If I change the first letter in cake to a b, the word becomes bake. Adding the letter d to the end of the word makes the word baked.
For additional tips on teaching high-frequency words and word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

Have students read to find out how the two families celebrate Thanksgiving. Remind them to visualize the setting of each story as they read each book.

During Reading

Student Reading

Guide the reading: Give students their copy of the book The Thanksgiving the Jacks Built. Have them read to the end of page 8 and then draw what they visualized on their worksheet. Invite them to share what they drew. Give each student their copy of the book The Thanksgiving the Other Jacks Built. Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the pages (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name). Then have them read pages 6 through 8. Encourage students who finish before others to reread the text.
Think-aloud: As I read each page, I created a picture in my mind of the setting of the story. However, when I looked at the pictures in the book, the pictures in the Other Jacks book were different from what I visualized. The family had strange clothes and hair. Their Thanksgiving dinner had food that looked very different from the Thanksgiving dinner in the Jacks book. The grocery store was filled with strange equipment. The words were the same but the setting gave the words different meanings.
Check for understanding: Have students read to page 12. Have them draw on their worksheet what they visualized. Invite volunteers to explain what they pictured in their mind when they read. Then have them uncover the pictures and share which words took on different meanings based on the setting. (Accept any answers that show students understand how to visualize.)
Have students read the remainder of the book. Remind them to continue visualizing the setting 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.
Have students draw on their worksheet what they visualized for the last pages in the story. Invite them to share what they drew. Then have them uncover the pictures and share which words took on different meanings based on the setting.
Think-aloud: As I read, I continued to create pictures in my mind about the setting. On page 15 in the Jacks book, I pictured a dog with long, floppy ears running alongside the boy with its tongue hanging out. I knew the Other Jacks book was on an alien planet, so I visualized how the meaning of the word dog would change in this setting. I pictured a dog with antennae and multicolored fur. Even though this wasn't the exact picture of the dog in the book, I changed the picture in my mind because I was aware of the setting.

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

Discussion: Review with students how the words of the Other Jacks story took on different meanings because of the setting.
Enduring understanding: In the two books you just read, the families and their home planets were very different, yet they celebrated the same holiday. Now that you know this information, how does it help you understand people who look different and/or who live in different places?

Build Skills

Phonological Awareness: Discriminate rhyming sounds

Say the word Pat aloud to students, emphasizing the /at/ sound. Have students say the word aloud and then say the /at/ sound.
Read page 7 of either book aloud to students. Have them raise their hand when they hear a word that ends with the /at/ sound.
Explain that words that sound the same at the end are called rhyming words.
Check for understanding: Say the following words one at a time and have students give the thumbs-up signal if the word rhymes with Pat: cat, bird, rat, bus, sat, that.

Phonics: Identify rhyming words

Write the word Pat on the board and say it aloud with students.
Have students say the /at/ sound aloud. Then run your finger under the letters in the word as students say the whole word aloud. Ask students what letters stand for the /at/ sound in the word Pat.
Write the at letter combination on the board. Have students name other words that rhyme with Pat. Write these words on the board. Ask students to tell which letter(s) changes in each word. Point out that the ending sounds, /at/, stays the same.
Check for understanding: Write the following words that end with the /at/ sound on the board, leaving off the rime: that, mat, hat, fat. Say each word, one at a time, and have volunteers come to the board and add the rime in each word.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the rhyming words worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Grammar and Mechanics: Past-tense verbs

Have students turn to page 6 of either book. Read the sentences aloud with students. Point to the word cooked. Explain that the word cooked is a verb and that it refers to an action that happened in the past.
Invite students to tell the present-tense form of the word (cook). Point out the -ed ending on the word cooked. Explain that the ed letter combination on the end of a verb tells readers that the action happened in the past.
Have students turn to page 9 of either book. Point to the word supplied. Invite students to tell the present-tense form of the word (supply). Write the words supplied and supply on the board. Point out that the -y is changed to -i before adding -ed.
Check for understanding: Write the words help, watch, and load on the board. Have students write each word in its past tense on a separate piece of paper.
Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the past-tense verbs worksheet. If time allows, discuss their responses.

Word Work: High-frequency words who and whose

Tell students they are going to learn two words that they will see often in books they read. Write the words who and whose on the board and read the words aloud. Have students read the words with you.
Have students turn to page 7 of either book. Read the page aloud. Point to the first use of the word who. Ask students to tell what the word means. Explain that the word who refers to the person mentioned previously in the sentence (the father).
Point to the word whose. Ask students to tell what the word means. Explain that the word whose refers to something that belongs to someone mentioned in the sentence (mother's name).

Check for understanding: Have students locate the words who and whose in their books and highlight them. Then have students discuss with a partner the meaning of each word in the story.

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 books to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends. Have students explain to someone at home how the setting in the Other Jacks book changed the meanings of the words.

Extend the Reading

Narrative Writing and Art Connection
Give each student a piece of paper. Have them draw a picture of their Thanksgiving dinner and describe how they celebrate the holiday.

Social Studies Connection
Help students research where and when Thanksgiving celebrations originated. Discuss different types of Thanksgiving celebrations.

Assessment

Monitor students to determine if they can:

consistently share examples of visualizing while reading
accurately identify differences in setting during discussion and on worksheet
accurately discriminate rhyming sounds during discussion
identify rhyme in words during discussion and on a worksheet
understand and identify past-tense verbs
understand and use the high-frequency words who and whose

Comprehension Checks

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