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When Lightning Comes in a Jar: Free Mentor Sentence Lesson and Activity

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This free sample provides a mentor sentence and interactive activity designed to be used over the course of a week with the mentor text, When Lightning Comes in a Jar by Patricia Polacco. (Book not included.)

Teaching your daily grammar lessons with the mentor sentences routine is the only way students will truly learn to apply grammar and language skills to their writing! No boring worksheets, lectures, sentences filled with mistakes, or rote drills that don’t stick…

Studies have shown that the “traditional method” of grammar workbooks, lectures, and diagramming is not only ineffective but can be detrimental to student writing! Grammar should be taught in context, NOT isolation.

Mentor sentences also help improve craft by revealing fantastic models of figurative language, descriptive words and phrases, and interesting sentence variation that they use as models for their own writing.

Mentor sentences allow students to soak up the language and grammar skills through noticing, conversation, and imitation, which in turn transfers to their writing.

Not familiar with mentor sentences? Read all about them here!

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WHAT ELSE DO I NEED?

There is a Sample Vocabulary Lesson for this book as well as a set of Better Than Basal Reading and Writing Activities for this book, if you’d like to try it out.

If you need more proof that the numerous volumes of mentor sentence curricula created by Ideas by Jivey are a best practice in the classroom, download the case study! The download presents the data collected over the 2016-2017 school year in the form of a case study.

Read about (with video included) how I tie everything together with this book!

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WHAT’S INCLUDED IN THE BUNDLE FOR THE WHOLE YEAR?

The yearlong bundle of ready-to-teach mentor sentence lessons will have students working with one sentence from a favorite read-aloud mentor text in a different way each day for just 10-15 minutes!

Teachers who enjoy using mentor texts to cover content and maximize teaching time will love adding these mentor sentence lessons to their toolbox.

For each week’s lesson, you will guide students in discussion of the main focus on one or two grammar and language skills, but they are also exposed to new and previous grammar skills, too! This spiral learning truly makes an impact on their retention of grammar understanding and writing abilities. Students of ANY ability can use mentor sentences; because of the consistency, students know what to expect each day, and the spiral learning keeps those important skills in front of them week after week.

Students will work on revision skills each week. They will also imitate the author’s style and structure. Both of these steps in the mentor sentence routine help cement the transition of grammar, language, and style they’ve learned to their own writing.

Finally, use the formative assessments provided to find out what should be reviewed in future weeks.

You don’t need to be a grammar guru to implement mentor sentences. When you purchase mentor sentences from Ideas by Jivey, you get a “cheat sheet” for all 40 weeks- all the work is done! I’ve even done all the thinking for you when it comes to revising and imitating!

Each lesson includes:
•the teacher sentence page for display
•the student sentence page to glue into notebooks
•a lesson plan page with answers for each day’s routine
•a formative assessment/quiz with answer key (provided in print and digital format) which also includes editing practice

There is a 9-page introduction in the FIRST unit with pictures included of how I use mentor sentences in my room (VERY detailed, day-by-day).

All of the books and lessons in this bundle are:
-The Golden Rule By Ilene Cooper
proper nouns
-The Name Jar By Yangsook Choi
proper nouns
-Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun By Maria Dismondy
possessives
-When Lightning Comes in a Jar By Patricia Polacco
vivid verbs
-Firefly Mountain By Patricia Thomas
vivid verbs (personification)
-14 Cows For America By Carmen Agra Deedy
subjects and predicates
-Those Shoes By Maribeth Boelts
conjunctions in compound sentences
-The Memory String By Eve Bunting
compound sentences
-The Adventures of Spider:How Spider Got a Thin Waist By Joyce Cooper Arkhurst
compound predicates
-The Spider and the Fly By Mary Howitt
similes
-Cloud Dance By Thomas Locker
personification
-In November By Cynthia Rylant
metaphors
-Tikki Tikki Tembo By Arlene Mosel
compound sentences
-The Great Turkey Race By Steve Metzger
complex sentences
-The Honest-to-Goodness Truth By Patricia C. McKissack
similes
-The Snow Globe Family By Jane O’Connor
comparative/superlative adjectives
-Snowmen at Christmas By Caralyn Buehner
poetry
-Martin’s Big Words By Doreen Rappaport
prepositional phrases
-Snow Day! By Lester Laminack
adjectives and adverbs
-The Day the Crayons Quit By Drew Daywalt
types of sentences
-Grace For President By Kelly DiPucchio
adverbs
-George Washington’s Teeth By Deborah Chandra & Madeleine Comora
order of adjectives
-Night Rabbits By Lee Posey
similes
-Crickwing By Janell Cannon
complex sentences
-Pinduli By Janell Cannon
relative pronouns
-Twilight Comes Twice By Ralph Fletcher
personification
-My School’s a Zoo! By Stu Smith
possessive pronouns
-Chicken Sunday By Patricia Polacco
dialogue
-Titanicat By Marty Crisp
prepositional phrases
-Voices in the Park By Anthony Browne
adverbs and adjectives
-Can It Rain Cats and Dogs? By Melvin and Gilda Berger
commas in a series
-Water Dance By Thomas Locker
personification
-You Wouldn’t Want to Sail With Christopher Columbus! By Fiona MacDonald
adjectives
-Postcards from Pluto By Loreen Leedy
possessive pronoun its
-Animals Nobody Loves By Seymour Simon
compound sentences
-OWLS By Gail Gibbons
compound subjects
-If You Traveled on the Underground Railroad By Ellen Levine
clauses in complex sentences
-Snowflake Bentley By Jacqueline Briggs Martin
similes
-My Brother Martin By Christine King Farris
irregular past tense verbs
-A River Ran Wild By Lynne Cherry
complex sentences

I chose books that would be in most personal libraries or school media centers. All of these are personal favorites of mine!

★ Get the BIG bundle with all Volume 2 Mentor Sentences, Interactive Notebooks, Modifications, Vocabulary Activities, and Reading and Writing activities for all 40 mentor texts in the volume! Check out the Biggest and BEST Yearlong Bundle for Volume 2!

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*The mentor sentence lessons I have created are adapted from the ideas of Jeff Anderson. These lessons were born from the routine that worked well in my classroom, and the demos and examples I present are variations of Jeff Anderson’s methods. This is not the only way to “do” mentor sentences in your classroom.*

Copyright © Ideas By Jivey, LLC
All rights reserved by author.
Permission to copy for single classroom use only.
Electronic distribution limited to single classroom use only.
Not for public display.

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