And Then it’s Spring Interactive Read-Aloud
“and then it’s spring” by Julie Fogliano is the perfect book to read to your class those first days of spring. Everyone gets spring fever as they wait for the temperature to raise just enough to allow the plants to start to grow and children to go outside and play. And then it’s spring is the perfect interactive read aloud. This story follows a little boy as he waits the weeks before spring for the grass to grow so he can play outside. This book is written in a fun, unique, slower rhythm that makes it a different read, which students enjoy.
The structure of the story is perfect for sequencing, which is exactly what my students did after we answered the text dependent questions about the key ideas and details of the story. They loved the cut and paste sequence activity.
You may also like: How to Catch a Leprechaun
The story has great illustrations. Erin E. Stead did an amazing job at telling more about the story through her pictures. We answered text dependent questions about the craft and structure of the book and then as a class we re-read the words on a few pages from the book and looked closely at the pictures. We discussed how both the words and the pictures work together to help you understand the story. The first page is a perfect example.
The text says, “first you have brown, all around you have brown.” If you were to read that without looking at the pictures you wouldn’t know what it meant. We talked about how the picture helps us understand that the brown is actually dirt. We looked at this page as well.
Again, you need to look at the picture as well as read the words to understand what the boy meant by, “and if maybe it was the birds.” After looking closely at both pages I had my students draw what the illustration showed about the text. They loved this activity and I loved how they turned out.
We answered the text dependent questions about the integration of knowledge and ideas for the third lesson. If you want to learn more about text dependent questions and how they are used to meet all the core reading standards check out this blog post. They students wrote what they would like to do on the first day of spring. We glued our writing onto a scene where there is green all around, which is like the last page of the book.
If you want to try out these text dependent questions and activities which meet all the core standards during your read-aloud time then you’re in luck! We have done all the work for you. You can purchase and then it’s spring interactive read-aloud by clicking on the link.
