Just a Bit of Chicken Schema

Our Kindergartners have been using their "schema" to make connections to text. Of course, what better text to use this strategy with than "Big Chickens"! Each student was interviewed during their Individual Reading Time to relate their text-to-self connection for "Big Chickens". This interview was done with a Flip Camera and then uploaded onto VoiceThread. When reviewed it is easy to see that we all have very different schema when reading a story! Their connections are eggcellent :).

Responding to "Big Chickens" the CC Way

My students have been working on responding to literature based on the elements of Writing Standard 2. The students brainstormed different ways in which they could respond to the March book of the month titled, "Big Chickens" by Leslie Helakoski. The students used a FlipVideo to record each others presentation. Here are the different ways in which the students responded to the book of the month. 

1. Wrote diary entries from the wolf's/chicken's perspective

2. Wrote and sang a song about life on the farm

3. Interviewed students acting as the wolf or chicken

4. Created a sequel to Big Chickens 

5. Wrote a poem about how the chickens felt

6. Created a "Big Chickens Trouble" board game

7. Acted out a telephone conversation between the chicken and the farmer

Big Chickens 2 (The Student Sequel) from Antonia Chant on Vimeo.

Dance, Chickens, Dance!

Mrs. Meissner's kindergarten class joined forces with Ms. Ossi and Mrs. Lankford's second grade classes, to respond to the book Big Chickens by Leslie Helakoski. The combined classes performed the Chicken Dance, and then worked collaboratively to create a Functional Writing piece about "How to Dance the Chicken Dance."


Dance, Chicken, Dance! from Antonia Chant on Vimeo.


Functional Writing from Antonia Chant on Vimeo.

Big Chickens - The Untold Story

Here is rest of the story told by Mrs. Harbour's & Mrs. VanAlstyne's class.

The students at the Four Corners are not BIG CHICKENS!

...when it comes to technology, that is. Here are our reponses to the book of the month from Mr.Pinchot, Ms.Launey, Mrs.Lopez, and Mrs.Phillip's classes.





We decided to let the children chose how to respond. They had a choice between acting in a readers theater, or drawing and doing a voice over about the Story Elements. Enjoy our reponses:


Ms.Lopez Homeroom Reader's Theater from melissalauney on Vimeo.


Untitled from melissalauney on Vimeo.


Lopez/Phillips Audio Visual Responses from melissalauney on Vimeo.


Launey/Pinchot Audio-Visual Responses from melissalauney on Vimeo.

Readers' Theater

Just like the previous post, our three classes did readers' theater productions of Leslie Helakoski's Big Chickens! We loved learning how to read with expression and working on our intonation and diction. We got to perform our readers theater for Miss Lewis and Miss Thomson's Kindergarten, Mrs. Bridges' Kindergaten, Mrs Alvarado's first grade, Mrs. Van Alstyne and Mrs. Harbour's first grade, Miss Hoffmann and Miss Patterson's second grade, Mrs. Nash's third grade, and Mrs. Metzger and Mrs. Morris' third grade! We hope you enjoy our play too!


Big Chickens by, The Lipsky Team from Jessie Lipsky on Vimeo.


Big Chickens by, Mrs. Wallace's Homeroom from Jessie Lipsky on Vimeo.


Big Chickens by, Ms. Symons and Ms. Wickert's Homeroom from Jessie Lipsky on Vimeo.

Reader's Theater

Our class really enjoyed reading the book of the month, Big Chickens by Leslie Helakoski. After reading the book our class decided to do a Reader's Theater with this book. Check out or video to see how creaive our students are!