A Day at the Zoo

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Have the students gather around you if you are going to read the stories from a book. If you are going to play the videos linked, make sure you have them loaded and ready to go on your projector or interactive whiteboard.
• After you have read one of the stories have the students retell the story in chronological order. Set them up with questions like what happened first, next, after that, finally?
• Model retelling the first story from begining to end.
• Next, read the second story and have them retell the story in chronological order. Have them focus on specific details, like the people, things, and events that occured in the story.

Guided Practice

• Have the students go back to their desks. Pass out one Write and Draw worksheet to each student.
• Tell the students that they are going to illustrate and retell If I Ran the Zoo. Because you just read two stories to them, you may need to give them a couple of hints to remind them of what happened.
• Alternatively, you could read one story then do the activity, and then read the other story and do the activity. Whichever you feel would be better for your class.
• You will need to walk around the room and monitor what they are doing and answer any questions they may have as they work. Prompt them to include details in the drawings and the story.

Independent working time

• Students will show what they know by retelling and writing the story on the lined portion of the paper and then drawing an event from the story in the box provided.
• Repeat the same process with the other story if time allows. Note: You could do this activity over several days if you do not have the needed amount of time.