Making Connections

Lesson based on the Story: Maple by Lori Nichols

Maple is about a little girl who was named after a Maple tree, the Maple tree grows and grows and changes throughout the season as Maple observes and grows also.

Prior to reading the story the students predicted the story would be about a little girl and a tree (based on the cover). The pointed to the title Maple and recognized that the title means “the name of the book”.

Discussion Prior to Reading the Story: The students were asked to make connections to leaves and the story and they came up with the following:
-They matched the leaves to the real leaves we have in the Science Centre (Treyson reflected on his art craft of tracing leaves which sparked many of the student’s interest)

-The connected to Maple leaves and how Maple trees provide us with syrup
-They matched the Maple leaf from the science centre and on the cover to the Canadian Flag which opened a discussion on why we think Canada has a Maple Leaf on the flag
-They connected to the Toronto Maple Leafs and we began a discussion on hockey
-discussed what is happening this season (Fall) and what we notice about the leaves

Text to Text Connection: Once we started reading the story they made a connection to the story Chrysanthemum from yesterday as the beginning of the book stated that “Maple loves her name” which is similar to the other story.

Text Interpretation: The text stated that leaves were “dancing” and a student shared that it meant leaves were falling and the wind was blowing around.

Art Activity to Accompany during Centres:
Students who were interested joined Ms. Givelos in a centre tracing leaves using different colours to reflect the season of fall.

Ideas for home: Discuss the changes of the leaves and fall and help your child make connections with the above topics to reinforce their understanding of the fall and what happens. Maybe, have your child collect some leaves on the way to school and bring them in to share with the class.