Sequencing: Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile

Objectives

This lesson is designed to establish the skill of sequencing for primary students, using the text Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile by Bernard Waber. In this lesson, students discuss the order of events in the story using a graphic organizer. This lesson is the second in a set of sequencing lessons designed for primary grades.

For students to successfully complete this lesson, they should have a good understanding of sequence, or putting events in order. They should be able to write phrases in the graphic organizer. If some students have difficulty writing, they can be paired with other students who can write to complete the graphic organizer together.

Materials

• Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile by Bernard Waber

• A chalkboard, white board, or chart paper to record information from the text

• Sequence Chain graphic organizer

• Blank paper, pencils, and crayons or markers

• Other books that students know well

Procedure

1. Hook/Engagement

   Write sentences from the story Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile on separate sticky notes. Paste a sticky note on the back of every child. Tell them you want them to line up in such a way that the sticky notes tell the story in the right order. You can help them by reading the notes on their backs. Don't worry about having this work out perfectly. Just have some fun with it at the beginning of the lesson. If you have time, you can have students play the game again at the end of the lesson.

2. Vocabulary

   • Persuaded-to convince or urge

   • Permitted-to allow or make possible

   • Dismissed-to leave, remove, or reject

3. Measurable Objectives

   Pass out copies of the Sequence Chain graphic organizer. Tell students that as you read the story, you will ask them to identify the main events of the story and put them in the correct order, or sequence, using the Sequence Chain.

4. Focused Instruction

   Show students the book and discuss what it might be about. The large crocodile and the building on the cover may lead to the conclusion that this story is about a crocodile who lives in a city. Tell students that as you read the story, they will write down the events in the story-or draw pictures if they are not writing yet. Show them the graphic organizer and explain that because there are six boxes in the sequence chain, they will choose one event from the beginning, four events from the middle, and one event from the end of the book and write them all on the graphic organizer. Read the beginning of the story, stopping with the page that ends, "Now he knew he would be snappy, irritable and impossible to live with when he returned to his job in a big department store the following day." Then, make a list of the events. After the list is compiled, think aloud and put the events in order, using words such as first, next, then, and afterwards. Discuss the order and look back at the text to check that events are in the correct order. Then think aloud as you choose the most important event from that section of the story, and write it in the graphic organizer.

5. Guided Practice

   Continue reading, stopping before the ending. Ask students to help you think of all the events from the middle of the book. List the events and ask students to arrange the ideas into the sequence that they happen in the story. Then, narrow the events to the two most important events from that part of the story. Responses may include:

   1. Mr. Grumps rescues Loretta.

   2. Lyle and Mrs. Primm visit the store where Mr. Grump works.

   3. Mr. Grumps gets angry and puts Lyle in the zoo.

   4. Signor Valenti helps Lyle escape from the zoo.

6. Independent Practice

   Then, continue reading through the end of the story. Have students complete the last box of the sequence chain on their own. Have them think about the events at the end of the story, and write them down.

7. Assessment

   Take time to share and discuss the events at the end of the story. Ask students to make sure the events in the sequence chain tell about what happens in the book in an order that makes sense. As an assessment, provide students with sentence strips of the events in the story and have them arrange the events in the order that they happened in the book.

Reflection and Planning

To continue working on sequencing, you may use the expanding lesson, Sequencing: The Hare and the Tortoise. It will explore the topic in a bit more depth, expanding students' understanding of the concept. If students are struggling with the skill of sequencing, review the skills taught in the previous lesson, using different texts during small group instruction. It may be helpful to continue using the "beginning, middle, and end" graphic organizer until students solidly understand the concept, and then have them work up to sequencing individual events in a story. Another idea for reinforcing this skill is to have a literacy center with events or sentences from the story on sentence strips to sequence. You may also choose to reinforce the ideas in this lesson by choosing another Bernard Waber book, such as Ira Sleeps Over, for students to sequence events.