Young Illustrators! We illustrated our very own books, The Polar Express. Each child thought about the words written on the page and what a good illustrator would draw on the page. We compared our drawings with the real story. They did a great job and are very proud of their work!

The finished product! "If I rode a train I would....." Where would you go if you rode a train anywhere in the world? Read below to see where my students would go!

I would go to Chuckie Cheese.

I would go to the city.

 

I would go to Florida.

I would go to Snappers.

I would go to a monster truck jam.

I would go to the airport.

I would go to the city.

I would go to the North Pole.

I would go to school.

I would go to the dinosaur museum.

I would go to the North Pole.

I would go to California.

I would go to the park.

I would go to the park.

I would go to Snappers.

I would go to the park.

I would go to Monkey Joes.

I would go to a building.

These students are working on our final activity with our predictable chart sentences. They cut their sentence up, mixed up the words and put them in the correct order before gluing them on the paper. After the sentences were on the paper, they cut and glued their train and school picture on the paper. Finally, they illustrated where they would go if they could ride a train! Very nice illustrations with great details!

We've been reading the story The Polar Express this week. Today we talked about the importance of the illustrator for the book. Each student received their own book written by the same author of The Polar Express. Their job is to be the illustrator on each page. We discussed how an illustrator takes his/her time and does not rush through. They want the illustration to match the words on the page and to catch the reader's eye. We also discussed how using more than one color would make the illustration even more interesting. We are working page by page and discussing what would be something to draw on each page after reading the words that were written by the author. The student's are having a great time playing the role of an illustrator and are adding a lot of nice details. A few of them even mentioned they want to be an illustrator when they grow up! :)

The first page in the book was about the little boy looking out his window at the train and when the little boy was getting on the train. Students chose one of the two ideas to draw. Below are several students illustrations.

Using our CAFE strategy "word by word matching" when reading our "If I rode a train I would go to ______." sentences. Each student concentrated on pointing to each word while reading their sentence. A few students caught themselves skipping over a word and/or going to fast or two slow. It is exciting to see them catch their own mistakes and correct them!