Comparing and Contrasting with Kevin Henkes

One of my favorite authors is Kevin Henkes.  His characters are funny and relatable for students while dealing with common issues.  My students love realizing that some characters appear in multiple books.  His books are useful for teaching many skills, but I especially love using them to teach students comparing and contrasting.

I taught this two part lesson with my third graders and focused on theme for the first lesson.  (If you teach younger students you could look at story elements or beginning/middle/end.)  We used Storyline Online to watch Chester's Way during our first lesson.  I was so excited to find this story on SAG's website, and even more excited when I saw that they have Katie Leclerc doing American Sign Language interpretation with this story!  I took sign language in college and enjoyed it, so this was a fun addition.

I've noticed my students have a difficult time locking onto the difference between theme and lesson in a story.  I gave a few examples of lesson and theme to help them see the connections and difference between the two concepts.  We looked at how students need to look at what the characters say and do as well as how they change throughout the story to find the theme.

As we read the story we kept track of events and characters to help us track those changes.  At the end, we discussed with partners what the lesson would be first, then used that lesson to help us find the theme of the story. Students were able to find more than one lesson or theme for the story, which led to a good discussion on how we can get different things out of a story.

The next time students came to me for library I read aloud Julius, Baby of the World.  I chose this book for several reasons.  It has characters from Chester's Way, which allows them to compare and contrast the same character in different stories.  In both stories the main character does not get along with another character until the end of the book.  The two books have enough similarities and differences to make them perfect for this standard.  We began by reviewing how to identify the theme of a book and reminding our neighbors of the events in Chester's Way.  At the end of the lesson, I had students get into groups of three to complete a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the stories.  Students did well with this lesson and they definitely felt more comfortable with theme the second time around.

What's your favorite Kevin Henke's book and how do you use it in your classroom?  Until next time, happy reading!

A New Beginning

May I just begin this post by saying how much I love being a librarian?  I began my teaching career almost three years ago and started out teaching second grade.  This year I switched to the library and have enjoyed it so much.  I like seeing different grade levels, teaching one subject, and having different groups of students come through my door every 50 minutes. 

I feel like I keep learning constantly throughout this year.  Since there is no library curriculum, I have had to create my own and it is one of the hardest things about my new job.  As a result of my short time frame with the students I end up teaching a lot of mini-lessons.  As I keep creating more and more I realized my time could help benefit others.  So I decided to create this blog to help out all my fellow librarians and teachers!  I'll be posting lesson ideas and book reviews to help you out with all those tricky concepts and give you great mentor texts to fill your library.

To start out I thought I'd review a book that I've read within the past semester.  So here we go!

Enemy Pie

by Derek Munson

illustrated by Tara Calahan King



A young boy begins to have trouble when a new neighbor, Jeremy, makes it onto his enemy list.  Luckily his dad has the solution - spend the whole day with Jeremy (being nice to him) while dad makes an enemy pie.  By the end of the day, the protagonist learns that maybe his enemy is not an enemy after all.  But will he let his enemy-turned-friend eat the Enemy Pie at the end of the day?

This book is so cute!  Anyone that teaches knows how hard it is for little humans to deal with relationships.  We've all had those kids that can't be together in the classroom or playground because they just can't seem to get along.  Young students can definitely relate to the feelings of our young protagonist as he describes his desire to put disgusting items such as worms and weeds in the Enemy Pie.  Your students will love this story!

Another great thing about this book?  It is on Storyline Online!  If you haven't discovered this website you are missing out!  The Screen Actor's Guild has created this site where famous actors and actresses read aloud stories.  There is fun music in the background and some stories even have the illustrations animated.  It is a great option for when you need to fill in a few minutes between lunch and recess, when your voice is hoarse from yelling all day, or when you want to mix it up and use your SmartBoard instead of getting an ab workout by showing the book to the whole class on every single page.  They have tons of titles, so check it out when you get a chance!  (To get to the video for Enemy Pie, click here.)

Now I know we're all about practicing skills while reading aloud, so let's break it down here.  This is a great book to practice predictions since there are some surprises and your kids' imaginations will fly.  You can also use it to teach students to find the moral or theme of a story.  And let's be honest, it's a great one to read aloud to that class that just can't seem to get along most of the time.  We've all had them.  And they need this book.

If you use the book make sure to comment below and let us know how you used it!  Until next time, happy reading.