The Perfect Interactive Read-Aloud for Kindergartners and First Graders
‘Please Mr. Panda’ by Steve Antony is a simple story with a positive message. Mr. Panda offers each of his friends a doughnut. Penguin, Skunk, Ostrich, and Whale all lack manners. They make demands, are picky, and forget to say “please” or “thank you.” He finally finds a friendly lemur who remembers his manners and gives him ALL his doughnuts. Students have to infer the reason Panda keeps changing his mind.
The first lesson, students sequenced the story by putting the characters in order after answering text dependent questions about the key ideas and details. After they completed the sequencing sheet they retold the story with a partner. Retelling is such a great way for students to meet speaking and listening standards. We teach our students right from the beginning of the school year the “rules of conversation,” which helps establish norms during partner talk. You can read more about our discussion strategies here. The second lesson, we answered text dependent questions that focus on craft and structure of the story. If you are starting to wonder why we format our text dependent questions the way we do, you can read more about how we refer to the Common Core ELA Standards to write our TDQ’s here. After answering the questions, students learned about dialogue by completing a speech bubble activity. The cut and paste option made it simple for even our youngest students.
The last lesson students considered cause and effect as they analyzed the moral of the story. The integration of knowledge and ideas text dependent questions really helped the students understand these more difficult concepts.After students gained a deep understanding of the story, they worked on the supplementary craftivity and retelling puppets. We love putting puppets in our retelling center for students to practice retelling with each other.
If you are still wondering if your students will enjoy something like this, try our free interactive read-aloud here, or if you are ready to try Please Mr. Panda interactive read aloud in your classroom click here. We also have over 100 other read-alouds to choose from in our store!
