Text Type: Fiction/Realistic
Page Count: 12
Word Count: 450

Book Summary
Wonderful Winter is a story about Elton, who enjoys being outside and is unhappy that winter has come. He is sad that he cannot swim, hike, or ride his bike anymore. It seems as though nobody can talk him out of his grumpiness until his next-door neighbor, Penelope, invites him to play in the snow with her. He realizes that snowshoeing, sledding, and building snow people can be just as fun as his favorite summertime activities. Illustrations support the text.

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Retell

Objectives

• Use the reading strategy of retelling to understand and remember story events
• Sequence events
• Recognize superlative adjectives used in text
• Recognize and form compound words

Materials

• Book -- Wonderful Winter (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Dictionaries
• Sequence events, superlative adjectives, compound words worksheets
• Discussion cards

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

Vocabulary

• Content words: adventures, bundled, decided, galoshes, grumpiest, neighbor, snowshoeing, suggested, terrible, terrific, wrinkled

Build Background

• Ask students what types of activities are possible in the snow (sledding, skiing, ice skating, and so on). As students share their ideas, create a list on the board. Talk about how many children enjoy these activities each year when the snow comes in winter. Compare their winter location with that of other children in the world.
• Ask students to share their feelings about the change of seasons. Ask which season is their favorite and why.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Book

• Give students their copy of the book. Guide them to the front and back covers and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers. Encourage them to offer ideas as to what type of book it is (genre, text type, fiction or nonfiction, and so on) and what it might be about.
• Show students the title page. Discuss the information on the page (title of book, author's name, illustrator's name).

Introduce the Reading Strategy: Retell

• Explain to students that one way to understand and remember what they are reading is to stop now and then during reading to retell in their mind what is happening in the story.
• Explain to students that when a person retells something, he or she explains the details of what happened in order. Point out that people retell stories as part of their daily lives, such as explaining what happened in school to a student who was absent. Ask students to share other examples of when people might give a retelling.
• Model retelling a familiar story in detail, such as The Three Little Pigs.
  Think-aloud: In The Three Little Pigs, three pigs each decide to build a house. The first pig decides to make his house out of straw. He gathers all of the materials and builds his house. The second pig decides to build his house out of sticks. He gathers all of the materials and builds his house. The third pig gathers the materials to build his house out of bricks. One day, a big, bad wolf comes to the house of the first little pig. He wants the little pig to let him inside and says I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house down.
• Continue retelling in detail to the end of the story. Invite students to suggest information for the retelling of this story.
• Have students place sticky notes on pages 4, 6, 9, and 12. Explain that as they read, they should stop on these pages to think about what has happened so far in the story. Encourage students to retell in their mind what happens in the story as they read.
• 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: Sequence events

• Review or explain to students that stories are generally told in order from beginning to end.
• Model sequencing the main events of the story The Three Little Pigs. Write key words about each event in order on the board as you describe them to students.
  Think-aloud: If I want someone to be able to tell the story The Three Little Pigs, certain events need to be included in order to tell the story correctly. In this story, the first event is that the first little pig builds a house out of straw. Next, the second little pig builds a house out of sticks. Then, the third pig builds a house out of bricks. After that, the wolf blows down the first pig's house. Then he blows down the second pig's house. Last, he tries to blow down the third pig's house, but he can't.
• Have a volunteer use the key words on the board to sequence the events of the story out of order. Ask students to explain why the order of the steps is important (the sequence does not make sense out of order). Discuss with students that a story does not make sense when the events are out of order.
• Point out the difference between the sequence of events listed on the board and a retelling of The Three Little Pigs (the retelling contains more detail and description; the list shows only the events that were most important for someone to understand the story). Ask students to provide examples of details from the story that are not included in the sequence of events.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Write the following words from the content vocabulary on large pieces of paper and hang them up around the room: galoshes, showshoeing, and bundled. Read each word aloud with students.
• Place students in small groups and assign each group to a word poster. Have them discuss what they know about the meaning of their word and write a definition on the paper. Rotate the groups until each group has visited every word poster.
• Review each word and the information about the word that students wrote on the paper. Create a definition based on students' knowledge and write it on the board.
• Explain to students that sometimes they will not find any context clues that define an unfamiliar word. Point out that this book does not contain a glossary, and ask where else students might look to find the definition of a word. Review with them how to locate a word and its definition in a dictionary.
• Have a volunteer read the definition for each word from the dictionary. Compare students' definitions with the dictionary definitions. Use the comparison to modify the definition for each word and write it on the board.
• For tips on teaching word-attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have students read to find out about wonderful winter. Remind them to stop reading at the end of each page containing a sticky note to quickly retell in their mind the details of the events so far in the story. Have them think about the events that happened first, next, and so on.

Student Reading

• Guide the reading: Have students read to the end of page 7. Encourage those who finish early to go back and reread.
• Cut out the pages from an extra copy of the book. Place pages 3 through 7 in a pocket chart or along the chalkboard ledge.
• Model retelling the events of the story using the illustrations as a guide.
  Think-aloud: I stopped after a few pages to retell in my mind what I had read so far. First, Elton told his mother he was unhappy that it was snowing. Then I read that he loved to be outside during the summer and that he was unhappy because he couldn't do his favorite outdoor summertime activities. His mother tried to distract him with cookies, homework, and cleaning his room, but he was still unhappy. Then Penelope arrived and asked him to play outside in the snow.
• Remind students that a retelling includes detail and description about the events of a story, and a sequence of events lists the most important events that someone would need to know to tell the story correctly.
• Point to the illustration from page 3. Explain to students that the first important event in the story is that Elton became unhappy when it began to snow. Write this event under the illustration from page 3.
• Have students look at the illustrations from pages 4 through 6. Ask them to explain what all these illustrations show (his mother trying to distract him). Write these events under the illustrations as a group. Ask students to explain what the illustration from page 7 shows (Penelope asking Elton to play).
• Check for understanding: Have students read to the end of page 9. Place pages 8 and 9 next to the pages from the beginning of the story. Ask students to use the illustrations as a guide to retell to a partner the details about the events after Elton and Penelope went outside to play. Listen to students' retellings for correct order and description of the story events. Discuss the retelling of these pages as a class.
• Ask students to identify the next important event in the story from these illustrations. (Penelope and Elton built a snowperson and went snowshoeing.)
• Have students read the remainder of the story. Remind them to continue stopping on pages with sticky notes to retell in their mind the details of the story.

      Have students make a question mark in their book beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. Encourage them to use the strategies they have learned to read each word and figure out its meaning.

• 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.

Reflect on the Reading Strategy

• Retell in detail with students the events of the story from pages 10 through the end of the book, using the illustrations from the book.
  Think-aloud: After Elton and Penelope had a great time snowshoeing and building a snowperson, they also had fun sledding. Elton decided that he loved the adventures he could have in the winter and that it was a terrific time of year.
• Have volunteers retell the events to the end of the book using the illustrations from pages 10 through 12. Then have them retell the story to a partner from beginning to end. Listen for whether students include the following: main characters, setting, correct events in order, and events in detail.
• Ask students how retelling the events of the story in their mind as they read helped them understand the story. 

Reflect on the Comprehension Skill

• Discussion: Review the events of the story listed in order on the board. Place pages 10 through 12 in order next to the rest of the pages from the story in a pocket chart or along the chalkboard ledge.
• Ask students to identify the sequence of events after Penelope and Elton went snowshoeing. (They went sledding. Elton told his mother he'd be home at dinnertime, with a happy face. Elton decided that he loved winter.)
• Independent practice: Cover the sequence of story events on the board. Introduce, explain, and have students complete the sequence events worksheet. Encourage them to use their book to complete the worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.
• Enduring understanding: In this story, you learned about a boy who loved being outdoors in the summer and thought he disliked winter activities. He eventually learned to love being outdoors in the winter, too. Now that you know this information, why is it important not to decide that you dislike something that you know very little about?

Grammar and Mechanics: Superlative adjectives

• Write the following sentences on the board: Elton hopped off the bus with his cheerful yellow galoshes. Underline the word galoshes. Ask students to identify which words in the sentence describe the galoshes (cheerful, yellow).
• Review or explain that adjectives are words that describe nouns or pronouns. An adjective tells which one, how many, or what kind.
• Write the following sentence on the board: "I know," Elton replied in his grumpiest voice. Underline the word voice. Ask students to identify which word in the sentence describes the noun voice (grumpiest). Explain that the adjective grumpiest is a superlative adjective, which compares the intensity of the adjective (not grumpy, but rather grumpiest). Point out that superlative adjectives, like other adjectives, describe nouns or pronouns, but they end with -est.
• Check for understanding: Write the following sentence on the board: Penelope and Elton made the largest snowperson anyone had ever seen. Have a volunteer come to the board and circle the superlative adjective in the sentence (largest). Have another volunteer come to the board and underline the noun that largest describes (snowperson).
• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the superlative adjectives worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

Word Work: Compound words

• Write the word homework on the board. Ask students which two words they see in homework (home and work). Explain that the word homework is an example of a compound word. A compound word contains two words that make up one word meaning. Explain that the definitions of the two separate words can help students figure out the meaning of the bigger word (work you complete at home).
• Have students turn to page 10, and read the following sentence aloud as they follow along: At lunchtime, Elton came inside without his unhappy face. Have students identify three compound words in the sentence (lunchtime, inside, and without). Ask them which two words are joined together in each word (lunch and time; in and side; with and out).

      Check for understanding: Have students turn to page 11 and reread the last sentence on the page. Have them identify and underline the compound word (dinnertime). Ask students to circle the two words in the compound word (dinner and time). Ask them to define the compound word using what they already know about the two separate words (a time when people eat dinner).

• Independent practice: Introduce, explain, and have students complete the compound words worksheet. If time allows, discuss their answers.

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. Have them sequence the events of their day with someone at home.

Realistic Fiction Writing Connection
Explain to students that realistic fiction is a made-up story based on something that could actually happen. Have students write a story about a character who changed his or her mind about liking something. Ask students to include the following in the story: what the character originally disliked, why he or she disliked it, and what happened to change his or her mind. If time allows, encourage students to illustrate their writing.

Visit Writing A–Z for a lesson and leveled materials on realistic fiction writing.

Social Studies Connection
Provide print and Internet resources for students to research places in the world where it snows in winter. Give students a map for them to identify the locations that receive snow and have them share their findings. Discuss the location of the equator in relation to the location of each place.

Skill Review
Discussion cards covering comprehension skills and strategies not explicitly taught with the book are provided as an extension activity. The following is a list of some ways these cards can be used with students:

• Use as discussion starters for literature circles.
• Have students choose one or more card and write a response, either as an essay or a journal entry.
• Distribute before reading the book and have students use one of the questions as a purpose for reading.
• Cut apart and use the cards as game cards with a board game.
• Conduct a class discussion as a review before the book quiz.