WEEK 1_Sideways Stories from Wayside School_February 2015
Book: Sideways Stories from Wayside School By: Louis Sachar
Ages: Kindergarten – 3rd grade
Duration: 4-week program (1hr 15mn/meeting)
Theme: School/Short Stories
Synopsis: This program is designed to take children on a 4-week journey through a series of short stories and participate in related activities. This program encorporates both crafts and activities. Each meeting is divided into walk-in activity time, reading, crafts/games, and snacks.
Week 1:
At a Glance:
Take attendance and discuss reading logs
Color and decorate a story that will be added to our very own Sideways School
Read Introduction and Mrs. Gorf
Play vocab game during reading
Make apple hats
Read Mrs. Jewls
Play vocab game during reading
Snack
Apple tree graham cracker and ritz cracker
Provided materials:
Walk-in Activity: Create a Sideways School
As participants arrive, let each child choose a blank story cut from construction paper. (See "Building Story Template" in the above list of provided materials.)
Cut out a selection of small items from magazines like toys, chairs, electronics (watch faces make nice clocks), and let participants choose 4 magazine cutouts to paste into their room. Anything else they would like to add to their room can be drawn.
I made the goal of this activity to encourage students to make up a story about what is happening in their picture. Each participant had to tell us about his/her picture before we could hang it up. Make sure their name is on the back of their story and choose a designated place on the wall to start stacking their stories.
Reading: Introduction, Mrs. Gorf, and Mrs. Jewls
Vocab List:
Cheat
Fair
Opinion
Investigate
Story
Winding
Zookeeper
Flabbergasted
Bushel
Chimpanzee
Gorilla
Discipline
Choose at least as many words from the above list as there are participants before reading. Display the words near the reading area.
One-by-one, explain the definitions of each word.
Instruct participants to raise their hand if they hear one of these words during the reading. When a child correctly identifies a word has been used, he/she earns a sticker for his/her apple hat! (These are to be made during the next activity.)
Then, pull the word off of the display and drop it into a bucket.
At the end of the reading, let each child take turns pulling a word from the bucket. If he/she can remember the definition of that word, he/she earns another sticker for the apple hat!
Occasionally there would be a word leftover in the bucket. In this case, I would read the word and the first person to raise a hand would be called on to give the definition and earn another sticker.
Activity I: Apple Hats - for vocab stickers
Give each participant a construction paper headband, several small construction paper apples, and one large construction paper apple
Ask each child to write his/her name at the top of their large apple.
Glue the large apple in the center of the headband
Then, glue each small apple to the headband
Snack: Graham Cracker Ritz Apple Trees
This is a hands-on snack!
Place a small dollup of frosting on a plate in front of each participant
Instruct them to frost their round Ritz cracker with their plastic butter knife and green frosting and place it towards the top of their plate (This is the leafy part of the tree.)
Pass out a rectangular graham cracker to act as the trunk and ask students to place it beneath their green Ritz cracker
Pass out some red M&Ms to each child and allow them to place a few "apples" on their tree.
Take pictures and ENJOY!
**NOTE: Be sure to ask parents in advance about any special dietary needs their children might have.
