Follow-up Guide for Picture Day Perfection

Don’t let this silly face on the Picture Day Perfection cover fool you in any way. Author Deb Diesen’s hilarious book is picture perfect to teach advanced elements of story and that’s just what we did in a follow-up guide crafted for grades 3 to 5. This book, pared with the attached guide, will make teaching the complicated (and sometimes kind of - yawn - boring) topic of elements of story fun, as well as unforgettable!

Practice comprehending literary terms with Picture Day Perfection Bingo.This guide is rich with literary terminology such as rising and falling action, exposition, climax, resolution, and aspects of the three act structure. Being that Picture Day Perfection’s intriguing circular plot line has such a clever twist at the end; students of all ages will delight in returning to the text with the intent of connecting the action on the page to the classic story arc.  And, for the ultimate opportunity to practice the application of skills, students can participate in a Readers’ Theatre production. The script is divided into specific acts and scenes, all correlating with the elevated concepts presented in the guide.

I have to say that creating two age-appropriate guides for the same book was a fascinating experience. We went from sequencing the months of the year in the proper ordinal pattern to chatting it up using high-level literary lingo.  Please take a moment to download the guide and see what I mean.

Simple Saturday: Lucky Ladybug Bingo

 Before we get to our Simple Saturday activity, I want to chat up this first book on the Princess Posey series. It is cute, cute, CUTE!!!! So cute I just had to buy a copy for my great niece. This book is PERFECT for a child who is about to take those big-big-big steps into the scary halls of First Grade! Believe me.

Y'all, I just have to brag on my pal, Steph. She's such a great writer that girl has gone and got herself a great starred review in The Horn Book. For real! Dude, that's no literary chump change...I'm telling ya!

The activity we're borrowing today comes from the guide written for the second book in this series called Princess Posey and the Perfect Present. The only real bummer here is that we can't buy this book until March! Darn it all.

Here. Click on this link and download the Lucky Ladybug Bingo Game and then I'll tell you how to play.

Prepare game board by printing pages on cardstock or copier paper. Cut out the nine Ladybug Bingo game pieces. Cut out the nine word labels.  Conceal the words on the labels by folding the paper strips in half.   Place folded strips in a small box or basket.

 To play the game remove a folded strip from box or basket. Encourage your wee one to read the word printed on the strip. On the game board, find the picture of the object written on the folded strip.       Cover the picture with a ladybug game piece. When all of the pictures have been covered by ladybug game pieces, remove them and begin again! If you'd like to, go ahead and print out a few game boards and play with your friends. The more the merrier!

Let's fly away home and have a little lucky ladybug fun, shall we?

Speaking of flying home, I'm on my way, John. I've missed you so!