The Day the Crayons Quit

I think my favorite aspect of planning is selecting a read aloud and creating meaningful learning activities based on the book.  We all know the power of reading aloud to our students.  I love the opportunity to expose them to a new story, new vocabulary, and model a comprehension strategy like making connections, visualizing, asking questions, summarizing etc.  Since I would be overwhelmed trying to share all of the books at once, I will  put the title of the book as my post title and share whenever I can.  I hope you can add some of these ideas to what you already do with read alouds in your classroom.

This year was my first year reading The Day the Crayons Quit and it will for sure be one I do every year.  They LOVE it and there are so many directions in which you can go.  For those of you who don't know the story, it is about a boy named Duncan who goes to use his box of crayons and finds a stack of letters.  The letters are written by each crayon and describe the reasons they want to quit (overused, not used enough, etc).  In the end, Duncan creates a picture using all of the crayons in his crayon box.

I think this story is great for modeling and providing guided practice for making predictions.  We looked at the cover and had a whole class discussion about what might happen in this story.  Why would crayons want to quit?  After we read the first letter from a crayon, the students knew that there would be more letters from other crayons.  They predicted which crayon would write next and what the crayon's complaints would be.  We also made predictions about the story would end.  I would sometimes do a think aloud and share my predictions and the details in the story that made me form that prediction.  I also had students sit knee to knee with a partner.  They would share their predictions (and supporting details) with each other.  Then we would have volunteers share their thoughts with the whole group.

We did two activities in response to the story.  Since we read this at the beginning of the school year, I had students create "All About Me Crayons."  I drew a crayon outline for each student on large construction paper.  The students drew pictures of themselves and things about themselves inside the crayon.  The only rule: They had to use ALL the crayons in their crayon box!  They loved that part.  It was so sweet to hear them chatting with their neighbors about how they were incorporating each color and using details from the story about why that crayon would be so happy.

As the students shared a little bit about themselves, we enjoyed these "crayon popsicles" that my own son spotted in the grocery store.  So fun! (In the picture of the book above, I'm holding one in front of the cover if you want to see what they actually look like).

We also did a writing activity (on a different day) and I have to tell you I was so surprised at how excited they were to do it!  Even my one little guy who can barely form letters was excited and really worked hard at writing to one of the crayons.  I provided a writing template.  

You can download a copy for free here. 

 I originally intended the words to be a sentence starter and students would simply list things they like to draw with the crayon they selected.  However, these guys always keep me on my toes and I had some put a period at the end and then begin new sentences with their own things to say to the crayon.  It made sense, so I rolled with it!  They had so much fun and I think it was a very motivating, fun beginning of the year writing activity.  

Here are a few of their letters!