Wednesday, February 13, 2013

"The Mystery in Munchkinland"

To go along with our First Grade, Unit 4: Winds of Change of the Common Core Standards, I developed this unit, "The Mystery in Munchkinland," allowing my students to become detectives during the story/ views of media clips from "The Wizard of Oz." The unit started by introducing this story scene to the detectives. The main standard wants students to identify the feelings and senses of characters in a story. Therefore, I focused on teaching students adjectives through the actions and feelings of the characters in this story. Included in the unit are role-play cards, in which student "Lead Detectives" ask questions of characters that witnessed this scene: Dorothy, Toto, Glinda, Mayor, Munchkin Boy, Wicked Witch of the West. Students worked in their detective booklets noting the senses used and feelings felt by the characters interviewed. We colored pasta and wrote about how we would feel if we could go over the rainbow. Using the Role-play cards, some students acted as Lead Detectives and other students played the parts of characters who witnessed this scene. As questions were asked of the characters about the senses and feelings they had, Detectives wrote the responses in their " The Mystery in Munchkinland" booklets to help draw conclusions to this case. Students were also engaged in activities such as: writing about how hearts have feelings; creating and wearing a medal of courage, just like the Cowardly Lion; and writing about the feelings of their favorite character over the course of the story. As a final assessment, the students took "A Wiz" of a Quiz over words that describe the characters from the story. This unit is available at my TPT store. There is also a free download of a game that helps reinforce adjectives-it is a great addition to this unit! Senses and feelings and fun, oh my!

2 comments:

  1. This unit looks amazing! I just put it on my wish list so I can find it when I am ready to tackle it. While looking in your TPT store I noticed you have ELA binder covers for units 1-6. We are going to Common Core ELA next year ~ are these units universal for first grade?
    Maria
    First Grade Carousel

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maria, Thank you very sweetly for your comment! My class really enjoyed the activities in this unit. They learned so much about senses, feelings, and adjectives with this story! Regarding the binder covers, yes, these are universal for the first grade units, 1-6, of the Common Core Standards. "The Mystery in Munchkinland" goes along with ELA Unit 4: Winds of Change. The binder covers are a free download on TPT! Hope they are a great start for organizing all of your ELA units! Tava :)

    ReplyDelete