Character+Sketch


 * Character Sketch**: We are beginning our reading focus on the characters of the stories we read. Our first character sketch was on a fun-loving pig named Julius - written by Angela Johnson and illustrated by Dav Pilkey. The kids were able to utilize the rich illustrations Pilkey created to help them better understand the descriptions of Julius provided by Johnson. The students created their own illustrations of Julius, and we then focused on how the author uses her words to help us create our own visualizations of Julius. We discussed how it is important, as we begin to transition into Chapter Books, we will need to pay closer attention to authors' descriptions of their characters because there will probably be limited pictures.

//At home reading focus: As we read// Julius //together a 2nd time we set a reading focus for "Julius looks...", "Julius acts...", and "Julius is special because...". Before your child begins to read, or you read together, bring up these three focus areas and see if they can find where the author describes their characters.// //﻿// After the kids illustrated their own Julius we discussed our three areas for our reading focus, and then they cut their illustrations into puzzle pieces and I paired them up and they had to combine their two puzzles to create a really wacky picture. It was a little more abstract than I anticpated, but they did a fabulous job. You can almost see the sweat on their little brows in the pictures below!