Sunday, April 7, 2013

Mentor Text Linky

I have a confession to make. I am insanely addicted to children's books. I have over 1200 in my classroom library. Plus more in my mentor text bin. One of my goals for the summer is to better organize my mentor texts, but for now my cabinet is overflowing and disorganized. 

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The wonderful ladies over at Collaboration Cuties are having a linky party about mentor texts. This week's theme is Language Arts. My absolute favorite mentor text for Language Arts is...

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This book follows a family as their children grow up and their tree Steve does as well. Steve holds laundry, creates leaf piles, places for young love to blossom, and shelter for the dog's house. Make sure you have tissues handy, because the end of the book never fails to make me cry. 

I use this book to teach main idea. On anchor chart paper, I sketch a tree. On the trunk, the kiddos and I come up with the main idea of the story. On the branches we put the supporting details. Each leave contains an adjective that describes Steve, the tree. I got this idea originally from the fabulous Amy Lemons. This is her pin that inspired me, over a year ago. 

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I complete this with the students and then have them complete their own main idea/detail activity later independently with another text. 

I cannot wait to see what other books are linked up, so I can add them to my shopping cart at Amazon! What are your favorite mentor texts?

 

2 comments:

  1. I LOVE this book! I have it but I hadn't quite figured how I wanted to use it when I bought it. Thanks for the great ideas!!! And thank you for linking up!!!

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  2. I had never heard of this book...and I am a fiend when it comes to children's books! I'm going to give it a go! Thanks for sharing and check in on my Mentor Texts at uncommontothecore.blogspot.com

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