Blackbird's Nest 6-pack Author: Olive Harvey ISBN: 9780478121032 Lesson Plan Blackline Master Grade Level: 1 Reading Level: G Strategy/Skill: Comprehension strategies, Fluency, Making predictions, Using graphic sources Genre: Explanation Theme/Topic: Animals, Birds, and Insects, Life Science Classification: Fiction Fluency: Early

Book Summary

Blackbird’s Nest is an expository text about the life cycle of the blackbird, presented as a poem.

Features of the Book

• The rhythm and rhyme.
• The possessive apostrophe – “blackbird’s.”
• The use of commas to mark a pause.
• The use of descriptive language – “lonely,” “empty,” “speckled,” “big,” “bare,” “small,” and “dead.”
• The rhyme – “grew” and “flew.”
• The distinct sequence of events in the blackbird’s life cycle.
• The use of alliteration – “Four bare babies in a blackbird’s nest.”
• A variety of blends – “bl,” “sp,” “gr,” “fl,” and “sm.”
• The challenge of the verb change on page 7.
• The high-frequency words – “sat,” “from,” and “what.”

Purpose

Blackbird’s Nest can be used in a guided reading setting to introduce and reinforce the following skills and strategies:

• predicting the meanings of new or unfamiliar words from the context of the story
• using structural cues to monitor that reading is making sense
• using a range of punctuation to read expressively
• incorporating diagrams and tables into pieces of writing to support ideas

For more information please see our Lesson Plan