Response to "Aunt Flossie's..."

Students read "Aunt Flossie's Hat and Crab Cakes Later" by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard and James Ransome. We talked a lot about how detailed each hat description was and how that detail really helped "paint a picture" in our minds, even if we couldn't see the illustrations. The class also discussed the story behind each hat. Students related that to objects that owned that had stories behind them.

For this activity students worked in pairs. One student wrote a hat description on the first page of StoryBuddy. The second student read the description and drew the hat on the second page. Students then talked about how the second student's illustration was the same/different as the way the first student had imagined it.

The pair worked together to write a story behind the hat. They did this on paper, since I wanted longer stories and their typing skills are still slow.

I had hoped to have them choose an object they own, describe it and write a story behind it, but we ran out of time for this part of the activity.