Read Alouds according to....Mrs. Driscoll

I can remember as a student having teachers share stories with me.  One of my all time favorites as a third grader was James and the Giant Peach...that was back in the day before the movie version!  So, I love being able to share favorite books with my own class.  Last year I found such a great book, I know it will become a yearly share for me.   Here it is: Humphrey is such a great share with my second graders!  Last year, I was getting my ESL endorsement when I began reading this book to my class.  We were discussing understanding children's culture and family--and this book couldn't share this lesson any better!  Humphrey's class is a perfect blend of multicultural and differing family dynamics and you travel along with Humphrey to learn about each student.   This year, with the push of finding time to 'fit it all in'... no such thing!  I found a way to fit it in as part of intervention time.  My group is children who are meeting or exceeding the testing for this quarter.  While I would love to share with my entire class, a few miss out when they go to their intervention.  I love the calls of 'Are we reading Humphrey today?' and 'Can we read a chapter today?' as the kids come in for intervention.  I love the sound of creating book lovers!  I read a few chapters each week and I also use an excellent packet on TPT by  Tracey Schumacher at The Teacher's Chair It has at least 1 response sheet or activity for each chapter and covers a variety of reading skills. Even my own second grader is in LOVE with Humphrey.  We have several of the other Humphrey books by Betty Birney.  They are all good!!  Our school had a storybook pumpkin patch and he chose to create a Humphrey Pumpkin!  We even used a Wee-Be-Little pumpkin of course!  So cute!  He was getting a little nasty here...but even had his own pencil and notebook!

As we have finished our read aloud in intervention,  We brainstormed the different adventures that Humphrey went on in the story.

Then the students worked to make a poster to advertise their favorite part of the story!  

They illustrated and wrote about their favorite part of the story.Here's some of the finished products!

Here's my 2nd Grader's poster!  He loves when Humphrey swings on the blind cord to get back to his cage!