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A Language Arts Mentor Text (The Gingerbread Cowboy), Giveaway Winners and the Big Sale!

Happy December! This Thanksgiving Break has been absolutely fantastic- I did a whole lot of relaxing and spent lots of time with family. I wouldn’t mind one or two more days, but I’m also feeling refreshed and ready for my little friends tomorrow. 🙂 This post is going to have lot of randomness to it, but there’s lots to share!

First up…our Blogiversary Giveaway just ended and we are so happy to announce our two winners:
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Thanks so much again to all who entered and all the bloggers who helped us out with donations- we so appreciate each and every single one of our followers and blogging friends!

Next up…I’m joining Collaboration Cuties for their Language Arts Mentor Text today.  I chose one of my all time favorite books to use during the holiday season- The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires.  This book is so cute and entertaining- every year my little friends just love it!

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The story follows the same format as the original Gingerbread Man, but with a little bit of a country-Western twist.  The gingerbread cowboy runs into various country themed things and eventually runs into a coyote…and you’ll have to read more to find out what happens to that little gingerbread cowboy…:)  This story can be used for a variety of literacy skills and strategies– you can use it for making predictions, comparing & contrasting with the original text, identifying character traits, questioning, etc. This week, we will be discussing questions we come up with before, during and after reading this story.  This can be difficult to teach little friends, but with a fun book like this, the students get more engaged and involved with the text and come up with questions easily! 
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 The pictures crack me up- this little gingerbread cowboy sure goes through a lot! If you haven’t read this book yet with your little friends, I highly recommend it.
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I first introduce the strategy of questioning with these posters providing specific examples through a quick think aloud.
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I use three differentiated graphic organizers for my friends based on their ability. My kinder friends check off the different questions they have…my 1st grade friends will either finish questions or write their own.  Once we have done the strategy a few times together, I try to get them all to the point of writing their questions on their own. We stop throughout the story to jot down any questions that have popped into our minds and as I said, that gingerbread cowboy really gets their little minds thinking! Plus, this story is a perfect one to refer back to regularly whenever using the questioning strategy again because trust me, your friends will remember all about this story.

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While reading the story, we also do quick follow up checks to respond to our questions to make sure we got answers. Usually my little friends will draw a picture to show their answers to their questions- my more advanced ones will finish sentence starters or write their own sentences showing their understanding of the answers to their questions. This pack is super helpful for teaching little early readers all about questioning- I love using it with my kinder and 1st grade friends…you can check out this pack here!

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Last thing…woohoo- it’s SALE time again! We just love TPT and their sales…both of our stores will be on sale with everything 20% off Monday and Tuesday this week– so don’t forget to check out Amanda’s store and my store and enter the Promo Code at the end to get 28% off total. Our carts are getting filled up and we are ready to save some extra money too- can’t wait for the sale to begin!

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Thanks Krista @ Creative Clips for the button!

Have a great day!
Aylin

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Picture of Aylin Claahsen

Aylin Claahsen

Providing resources and support to engage all readers.

2 Responses

  1. Thank you for sharing that book! The kids here would love it since they love cowboy type stuff! I like the way you did your questionings for the different age groups that you have. Makes it so much easier for those of us that see all different age and reading levels to be able to use one book and activity in different scaffolded ways!
    Lori
    Conversations in Literacy

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Hi, I'm Aylin!

I’m so happy you’re here! I’m a certified reading specialist who loves talking all things literacy. I have a huge passion for providing resources and support to engage all readers!

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