Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle

Recommended Grades: 3-5

A tentative partnership blooms into an unlikely friendship between a girl and a flamingo in this wordless picture book.

Lesson Idea:

Close Reading/Making Inferences: Share Flora and the Flamingo with students. Provide students with sections of the story to “read.” What do they notice? Ask them to make inferences about the section they have. Ask students how words and pictures work together to help us understand what we read. Would words help them understand what is going on in the pictures? How? What emotions do the characters show? How do you know?

©2013 by Dawn Little for Picture This! Teaching with Picture Books. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

Bluebird by Bob Staake

Recommended Grades: 3-5

A lonely boy meets a special friend in this wordless picture book. A beautiful story of how the friendship is tested.

The Common Core State Standards have placed a lot of emphasis on close reading. Here is a way to teach students how to “read closely” using pictures as a scaffold.

Lesson Idea:

Close Reading/Making Inferences: Share Bluebird with students. Provide students with sections of the story to “read.” What do they notice? Ask them to make inferences about the section they have. Ask students how words and pictures work together to help us understand what we read. Would words help them understand what is going on in the pictures? How?

©2013 by Dawn Little for Picture This! Teaching with Picture Books. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg

Recommended Grades: 2-6

In the introduction, we learn that Chris Van Allsburg saw the drawings in this book at the home of Peter Wenders.  Wenders once worked for a children’s book publisher.  Thirty years ago, a man called Mr. Wender’s office, introducing himself as Harris Burdick and leaving 14 drawings with a title and caption for each one.  Burdick promised to return the next day with the stories he had written to go with each picture.  Mr. Burdick was never heard from again. . .

Lesson Idea:

Comprehension Strategies:

Making Inferences: Read aloud The Mysteries of Harris Burdick as part of a unit on making inferences.  Provide students with a picture and ask them to infer what is happening in the picture.  Use this book after modeling and making inferences with other books.     

Six Traits

Idea Development: After reading aloud The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, have students choose a picture from the book and using the first line that is written, continue the story.  How do they envision the story?

Note: Recently many popular children’s authors came together and wrote stories based on these pictures in The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales / With an Introduction by Lemony Snicket.  After students write their own stories based on the pictures, share some of the author’s ideas and how they envisioned the story. 

©2012 by Dawn Little for Picture This! Teaching with Picture Books. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday by Judith Viorst

Recommended Grades: 3-5

Alexander receives money from his grandparents and really wants to keep it, but does he?    

Lesson Idea:

Reading Workshop

Comprehension Strategies: Making Inferences: Read aloud Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday and model how to infer what characters are feeling based on the pictures and text.  Create a t-chart that says Text Clues and Inference and use it as a guide to scaffold for students (or What the Picture Shows/Inference).  Once you’ve modeled, provide students the opportunity to make inferences with a partner (use a different book) using the t-chart.  Eventually, have students make inferences as they read without the t-chart.

©2012 by Dawn Little for Picture This! Teaching with Picture Books. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

Tuesday by David Wiesner

Recommended Grades: 3-5

A nearly wordless picture book depicting how frogs behave one Tuesday night. 

Lesson Idea:

Comprehension Strategies

Making Inferences: Read aloud the first half of Tuesday.  As you read aloud, model how to make inferences by inferring what the frogs are doing on this Tuesday night. Explain what an inference is and how they help us understand what we read.   Create a t-chart that has two columns (What the picture shows/Inference).  As you read aloud, model how to fill out the t-chart.  After reading aloud the first half, provide an opportunity for students to work with partners to complete the second half with a t-chart.

©2012 by Dawn Little for Picture This! Teaching with Picture Books. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.