The Lonely Snowflake is a hit in kindergarten and first-grade classes! We started the lesson off by sorting the book cover into the narrative category on their genre chart and talking about how we knew that this was a story and not real. The face on the snowflake really helped to give that away! Next, we discussed together what the word lonely meant, and I began reading the story with them. I love how many of the students picked up on the fact that you do not have to be just like someone else to be their friend and that we can all be friends together. After we finished the story, we wrote about how Snowflake was feeling at the beginning of the story and then how she changed and was happy at the end. I had a few helpers come up and add to my chart as I was writing. I included a drawing of her face and a label for her emotions. Next, I wrote the sentence starter on another chart paper for students to then finish. As they told me, when they felt lonely, I color-coded their answers so that when they went back to their seats, they would know which sentence they could look back to for help in their response. Tomorrow, they will write about when they are happy and then put their samples together into a feelings book.
Download this lesson and a nonfiction lesson to pair with it here.