Who's Napping? Images Change in the House!

• The Napping House by Audrey Wood
• Lesson vocabulary words from the Reading/Writing word wall: imaging, plot, rhythm, literature, characters
• Set up the whiteboard
• 'Images Change' worksheet
• 'Imaging & Visualizing Strategies' poster ** (I have used this throughout my imaging unit)

I like this story because it's a classic in elementary literature. A lot of my kids have read or heard the story, and the prose and repetitive text are fun!  It gives kids a chance to use their imaging/visualizing strategy easily because the changes over the course of the text are obvious and clear.

** "Imaging" is the term that my district uses for "visualizing". In order to stay true to the district expectations, I'll continue to use this verbage. Visualizing is a critical skill for 2nd graders because they need to 'go deeper' in the text. By visualizing as they read, they are creating and tweaking images in their minds as they actively read. This kind of 'close reading', forming images using text, verifying and changing those images, and ultimately comparing their images to the author, creates critical readers and deepens comprehension.

Underlined words below are lesson vocabulary words that are emphasized and written on sentence strips for my Reading & Writing word wall. I pull off the words off the wall for each lesson, helping students understand this key 'reading and writing' vocabulary can be generalized across texts and topics.  The focus on acquiring and using these words is part of a shift in the Common Core Standards towards building students’ academic vocabulary.  My words are color coded ‘pink’ for literature/’blue’ for reading strategies/’orange’ for informational text/'yellow' for writing/’green’ for all other words)

Common starting point

• "We have talked SO much about how imaging helps us."
• We should be active readers with the literature - using imaging to enjoy what the author has written for us."
• "Authors like to entertain us with a great plot. Sometimes, the story is sad, sometimes scary or happy. Sometimes the story is silly and funny. Today's story is a funny tale about a house where things nap."
• Take a look at how I introduced the lesson.

Lesson discussion

• “Let's review some of the ways that imaging/visualizing helps us."  Look over the poster and review with the class.
• "The story is so funny - lots of cute things happen in this story and it makes me smile.  Some stories are funny and others are sad.  Authors can write stories that make us laugh or cry."
• "I'll add that to my 'Imaging/Visualizing Strategy' poster."

Imaging helps me laugh or cry with a story.

• Here's how the discussion about the poster sounded.

Modeling

• "There's a great rhythm to this story that makes it fun to read."
• "We can use imaging to create a picture in our head about what is happening and understand the story better. There are lots of characters and it's fun to see how they react to different events in the story."
• Read through the page, 'And on that granny...'  "I'm going to draw a picture of the grandma and the kid. I noticed there were animals in the last picture, so I'll infer that the cat will wake up and add that to my image."
• "Let's check the text (show the picture)- I was right, but it was the dog, not the cat that woke up so I'll change my image."  Look here for an example of my demonstration and this is the first image that I made.
• Pass out the papers and have the kids copy the picture.

As you discuss the characters and what happens to them in the story, this isa a great opportunity to describe chow the character respond to major events and challenges (RL.2.3) My students really understood, more from the illustrations than from the text, what happened as each character fell asleep and then woke up. They wanted to share how a flea could wake up a mouse, who woke up the cat..... It was a prime example of how characters change and respond to each other.

Guided practice (read the text but hide the picture until the kids finish drawing)

• "Help me use imaging to see how the plot is changing."
• Read through the page, 'And on that cat...'
• "What should we put in the image?"  Take ideas and draw.
• "Let's check the text - were we right?"  Make changes as necessary. Listen to our discussion.
• Here is the completed whiteboard completed.

Model, model, model and guide students to go back and verify their images with the text and illustrations. It's critical that they have support for their images and comprehension, based on the author's words and pictures. There are inferences to be made and background knowledge can add more information, but ultimately the Common Core Standards ask students to support their answers with information in the text.

Explain the task

• "Did you notice the pattern in the text?"  Take ideas.  "We're going to recreate that pattern in another setting."
• "Your job is to create another 'house' with different characters. Let's brainstorm some kinds of houses that you could draw."  Take ideas (Napping Zoo, Napping school, Napping Jungle...)
• These are the places and animals that we listed for kids to choose from.

Give time for the project

• "Now take a few moments to create your picture.  Remember the pattern- the animals or characters should pile up one-by-one from largest to smallest. The characters should fit the setting."
• Here are 2 of students' pictures: student project 1 and student project 2.

Scaffolding and Special Education: This lesson could be scaffolded up or down, depending on student ability.

Students with academic challenges may do alright with the drawing, since there's no writing involved. Encourage them to participate in the discussion and use clear enriching vocabulary for them to be exposed to.

Students with higher language should be able to describe their images more completely. These are the students who could come up and explain why they created the images and how the text supported the ideas.