Mrs. McGowan's 1st Grade: Stranger In The Woods

Mrs. McGowan's First Grade
H. W. Mountz School Spring Lake, NJ

stranger_cover.jpg (15068 bytes) Stranger in the Woods
Class Activities and Poems

Stranger in the Woods by Carl Sams II and Jean Stoick is a wonderful book! The animal photographs are beautiful and the story theme about caring for wildlife is appealing and meaningful to children.

You can click on the book title and read reviews about it at amazon.com.

This book was selected to be the basis for our class contribution to the

Frosty Readers 2002 Internet Project
hosted by Susan Silverman and Patti Knox.

We participated in this global winter project along with many other classes. Please click on the Frosty Readers title to go to the project page. You'll see what other children have done and find many winter resources.
** One of the special features of this project is that participating teachers created several online activities for students.

Our project consisted of the following activities:

~ Multiple readings of the book for a variety of purposes, including a comparison with another book

~ Making animal masks and retelling the story for our 4th grade buddies

~ Learning how to use online spelling activities using animal names from the story

~ Writing poems based on animals in the story and illustrating them

We considered how Stranger In the Woods and another story, The Night Tree by Eve Bunting, were similar and different. Here's our Venn Diagram:

Stranger In the Woods	Both Stories	The Night Tree
Photographs are used.	*	Drawings are used.
Animals come to a snowman for food.	They have animals that live in the woods.	Animals come to a fir tree for food.
Children put out the food.	Food is left for the animals during winter.	A family puts the food on the tree.
At first, the animals are afraid of the stranger.	Everyone is happy at the end.	Animals are used to trees in the woods.
Real animals eat together.	*	Shows animals that would not eat together.

A quiz was made at Quia.com to unscramble animal names from The Stanger in the Woods.

Animal Words Jumble

This was great fun! The students worked together on spelling the words and took turns typing in the correct letters. Our big TV screen came in handy for this whole-class activity. It helps to have read the book, but there are clues to help find the animal names. The tricky part was spelling them correctly!

Another online spelling activity was created using a drag and drop format. In this one, students use the mouse to move words on the screen.

Animals In ABC Order

Story Masks
	Retelling the Story This was great fun! We all made masks for some of the animals in the story, with some duplicates too. We had 3 owls and 3 mother does, but no porcupine, muskrat, or squirrel. Luckily, we did have the Stranger! Mrs. Cavallaro's 4th grade buddy class were patient listeners to our story retelling.

Our final activity was to write a poem in response to the story and illustrate it. Once again, the animals were the focus of our work (we are learning about animals all year as part of our science curriculum). Each student selected an animal for their poem. Mrs. McGowan showed the class how to write a poem that just has 4 lines:

Line 1 has a describing word or words
Line 2 has a the animal's name (noun)
Line 3 has an action the animal did (verb)
Line 4 ends the poem

Our poems and a few illustrations can be seen on the Frosty Readers site. You can see all our poems and illustrations below:

	Wise, Owl of many questions, Flying to warn the other animals, There's a Stranger in the Woods! ~ Scott
Two gray, Mourning Doves, Cooing directions, Looking for the Stranger. ~ Dominique
	Brown, Porcupine, Chewing on an antler, doesn't care About the Stranger in the Woods. ~ Thomas
Gray, Owl of Many Questions, Warning friends, About the Stranger in the Woods. ~ Caitlin
	Brown, Mouse, Wondering about, The Stranger in the Woods. ~ Annie
Brown, Muskrat, Munching by his pond, Never saw the Stranger. ~ T. E.
	Little brown mouse, Digs a tunnel in the snow, To be closer to The Stranger in the woods. ~ Anna
Red, Cardinal, Flying in the snow, to the Stranger in the Woods. ~ Ryan
	Brown and white, Brave mouse, Creeping quietly, Closer to the Stranger. ~ Anthony
Fast, red, Cardinal, Getting closer, To the Stranger and birdseed. ~ Brian
	Scared, Chickadee, Gets to the Stranger first, Finding seeds and nuts in his hat. ~ Amy
Two, Good children, Put food out, Making animals happy. ~ Hannah

This project is in alignment with the following standards:

New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards

Language and Literacy
3.2 listen actively in a variety of situations to information from a variety of sources.
3.3 write in clear, concise, organized language that varies in content and form for different audiences and purposes.
3.4 read various materials and texts with comprehension and critical analysis.
3.5 view, understand, and use nontextual visual information.

Social Studies
5.6 gain an understanding of the structure, characteristics and basic needs of organisms.

National Educational Technology Standards for Students. (NETS)

Use technology communications tools:
Students use telecommunications to collaborate, publish, interact with peers, experts, and other audiences.

Mrs. McGowan's First Grade Class
Spring Lake, NJ