Too Tall Tales!

I love tall tales!  It is one of my favorite things from grade school, and add in the old Disney tall tales cartoons...  It brings me fond memories of my elementary school days.   Common core asks that students recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.  So I thought, perfect way to incorporate tall tales into our second grade ELA curriculum.  Our first grade team works with fairy tales, so we can build on that learning with this genre!
I utilized some A to Z readers that we have in our book room.  Luckily I was able to find a book for each level of my guided reading groups.  We spent our guided reading time, reviewing the elements of a tall tale and each group worked cooperatively to create a poster about 'their' tall tale character. I modified an idea I found at Totally Terrific in Texas and created posters that focused more on the elements I wanted them to be able to pick out that were part of a tall tale.  
Here's how they turned out!  

We also incorporated activities from MANY great packets out their on TPT.   To coincide with our tall tale unit for shared reading I used the book Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa After reading the tall tale Pecos Bill, we used Cowgirl Kate as part of our shared reading.  This book is on the common core stories list for text exemplars.  I also created my newest packet on TPT to go along with this book!  I hope you check it out!