In this story elements lesson plan, primary teachers will read the book, The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton and do a story elements activity. Teachers can find several ways to teach using this children's classic piece of literature.
Winner of the prestigious Caldecott Medal, The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton is a timeless literature piece for students K-3rd grades. Like most children's classics, the story begins with the words, "Once upon a time". Written in 1942, it is a true classic when still used in classrooms nearly seventy years later!
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For a book synopsis, bibliography, and review, please read more at Barnes and Noble.
There a several possible teaching points to use with this story. Read it several times and you can include one teaching point from the book per day for a week. Some teaching points are as follows:
- Personification- the house feels, watches, is curious. How is the house like a person in the story? Especially, a great lesson on, "the grass is always greener on the other side."
- Connections between self and text- have you ever felt the way the house does? This is quite successful if the teacher can take some pictures of development in the local area, then bring them to class to share with the children. Oft times, a house will be torn down, vacant and dilapidated, or for sale at the expense of new construction.
- City versus country living; agriculture versus industry. How are the lifestyles different for people?
- Setting- time, place, and seasons. The story includes, day and night, moon phases, and seasons.
- Valuing material goods- what happens when the house is neglected? How should we treat the things that belong to us, most especially our homes? How can we can take care of old things? This can be a whole lesson about respect for the classroom and the materials in it as well.
- Sequencing a story- this story has a definite progression of events that can be mapped out for the children to follow. Use pictures and word on index cards to sequence the story from start to finish. After several times of group practice, students can use the book as a guide to help them sequence the story independently.
As a culminating activity, have the students write the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Fold a large piece of writing paper (with illustrator box) into thirds to create the beginning, middle and end, or go to the website below to download story paper and staple as many pages together as the students need to complete their work. The children can include the problem and how it was resolved, setting, and how the house felt throughout the story. They can illustrate their own books to match the picture. This activity would compliment a lesson about community, parts of the world, farms, or industrialization.
