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One of my favorite parts of being a teacher is reading books aloud to my students. Even though I teach fifth grade, my students still love to be read to. I even bring them to the carpet and we read and discuss the book just like a book club. It is definitely one of my favorite parts of the day. I wanted to start a blog post series to share some of my favorite read alouds with you, as well as how I use them in the classroom.
The Sweetest Fig by Chris Van Allsburg is a great read aloud to read in the first month of school. I specifically use this book to teach predictions using evidence to support the predictions, inferring, and using evidence to support a point. These are perfect skills for the beginning of the school year. To summarize this book, there is a greedy, mean man named Bibot who has a dog that he mistreats named Marcel. Bibot is a dentist and is given two magical figs that will make dreams come true instead of payment. Upon eating the first fig, his dream comes true. He then plans to dream about becoming rich. He is successful with his plan, but his dog Marcel eats the final fig before Bibot can. When the two characters wake up, they have switched places! I love the ending because the author does such a great job of making Bibot into the bad guy, and Marcel is such a pitiful creature. The students will love the ending and the fact that Bibot gets what he deserves.
When I read a book prior to reading it in class, I usually have a stack of post it notes with me. As I read the book, I write down a question or thought on the post it note and stick it on the page. Then as I am reading aloud, I take the post it note off and stick it on my chair. Since it would be impossible for me to share my post-it notes with you, I typed out my questions instead in a teacher guide. My copy did not have page numbers but I tried to keep count of the pages as I went. You may pick and choose whichever questions you want to ask your students, depending on what you want your focus to be. When I am doing read alouds, I do a lot of Think Pair Shares. I will ask a question, give the students a minute to think privately, then have them pair up, and have them share their thoughts. These questions are perfect for that type of discussion.
As I read any book, I give the students a focus question to think about or jot down notes in response to throughout the reading. The focus for this particular book would be for the students to find evidence to support the idea that Bibot is a terrible pet owner. I have included a printable for the students to jot down their thoughts as they listen. I also love having my students complete writing extensions after reading a book. I included two printables to have your students write some narratives after listening to the book.
I hope you and your students love this book as much as I do. Click here to grab the printables in this post.
Click on the image below to grab this book from Amazon.
I just found your blog, and I am so impressed with your work. You are very kind to share your hard work with others for free. Bless you!
? Cool! I’ve never heard of this ?. I’ll have to try it. Thanks
Hi, I love this resource! I had not read the book before seeing this. On the PDF, you have the character Bibot spelled Bibet through your the entire file. Is there anyway to change this?
A great resource, but the name of the main character is misspelled. Can you please fix this?