Kevin Henkes

Kevin Henkes Books

I love beginning the school year with Kevin Henkes's mice. The children can identify with their problems. During this literature unit we learn a little bit about the author and a whole lot about the mice and ourselves.

 Favorite Kevin Henkes Books:

Chester's Way

Owen

Chrysanthemum

Julius The Baby of the World

Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse

Lilly's Big Day

Sheila Rae The Brave

Wemberly Worried

A Weekend With Wendell

A description of each book, plus additional Kevin Henkes Information can be found at the Kevin Henkes official website. http://www.kevinhenkes.com/

ACTIVITIES:

Book: "Wemberly Worried"

Activities: Before reading this book we make a list of things we worry about.  We title the list "First Grade Worries"  Then we read the book and raise our hands anytime we hear a worry that we have too!  After reading we look at our worry list again and make any changes as requested by the children.  The next day we re read Wemberly Worried and write about our worries. (Scroll down file attached at bottom of page.) Our writings are turned into a powerpoint classbook called "First Grade Worries" which is usually posted on this website.

Book: "Chrysanthemum"

Activities:

• After reading a discussing the book we write our names on block paper. 
• We compare our names - who has the most/fewest letters in their names.
• We make a unifix cube train that has the same number of cubes as letters in our name.  Students try to find someone inthe class who has the same size unifix cube train.
• We line ourselves up shortest to longest names. 
• We also put our name strips on the classroom white board, graphing them according to the number of letters in our names.
• For homework I send home "A Letter to My Child"  Parents fill in the sentence starters about their child.(Scroll down file attached at bottom of page.). At school I take the time to read each child's letter to them.  We then put the letter in each child's yearlong scrapbook.

Book: "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse"

Activities:

• After reading the book we recall the items in Lilly's purse.  Students then color a purse purple and draw in the items that Lilly had in her purse.
• We make Lilly's movie star glasses - complete with glitter!
• The kids favorite part is looking inside Mrs. Harper's purse to see what she carries with her!  (I clean it out the night before to remove any "not ready for first grade eyes" items!)

Worry Writing (doc file)
Letter to My CHild (doc file)

doc file: You need the Microsoft Word program, a free Microsoft Word viewer, or a program that can import Word files in order to view this file. To learn more about the free Microsoft Word Viewer, visit the Microsoft Word website.

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