The Empty Pot

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Today in Language Arts we were continuing our inferencing lesson, I taught a lesson on prediction. They've seen it before, but for in their response logs, teachers are looking for deeper connections using prediction. They have to pull quotes from the text to support their predictions.

Using the Smart Board to project a graphic organizer, I was able to model for the class how to use a quote from a book to support a prediction, revise a prediction, and then explain what really happened. The book I used was called The Empty Pot, by Demi. This is a wonderful story about a little Chinese boy, Ping, who loves to grow flowers. One day, the Emperor decides to choose a successor from among the children and gives them all seeds. Whoever grows the best flower will be chosen Emperor. But there's a twist! This book made for a great prediction lesson. Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for choosing the book. It was part of a scripted lesson the school has. REM gave me the scrip and graphic organizer, however, I only used the scrip as a guide, and created the information for the graphic organizer.

I first introduced prediction, and then the graphic organizer up on the Smart Board. I had everything already filled in, but put it in white text, so to revel it to the class, all I had to do was change the font color. :) That's the first time I did that...and I loved the way it worked out! (So did REM.) I then read the book, starting with the cover, modeling how I make predictions. I made a few more using quotes, and then stopped on a page to have the students help me make a prediction and pull a quote. They participated really well!

I was also asked my REM and Sunshine if I would teach the lesson to Sunshine's class, because she didn't have one prepared herself, and they liked mine. ;)