30 March 2015

Tall Tale Extravaganza...

We had such a great time learning about tall tales this year.   It's honestly one of my favorite units in second grade.   Slue-Foot Sue has always been ones of my absolute favorite tall tale heroes.  I mean she rode a catfish the size of a whale...you just gotta love her!  I found the Idiom worksheet below, which is part of the Evan Moor's Tall Tale Literature Pockets resource.  When I saw the title of the page...I knew I'd have to create a downright silly Slue-Foot Sue to match.  They had so much fun with idioms, and it certainly looks like Slue-Foot Sue bit off more than she could chew!




I get all of the Tall Tale stories that I read aloud to my students from the Evan-Moor Resource.  It's an amazing resource.  The Slue Foot Sue template we used can be downloaded below for FREE.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3Cmz2vCWLe6OVM2TkR6MzZuQmc/view?usp=sharing


You certainly can't learn about Slue-Foot Sue without learning about Pecos Bill.  I mean she is his better half.  We worked on these webs after learning about Pecos Bill.  Click here to get the free download.



We made the same posters as last year and I really fell in love with their illustrations! You can check out last year's post here if you're interested in reading more about the posters.






We always learn about the four tall tale heroes in the graph above.  But, this year we added a new tale to our list.  I had the opportunity to correspond with the author of the story, A Rip Snortin' Tale of a Toad.  The author is Ruth Bates and I was super excited when she reached out to me to share her adorable tale.  I really couldn't wait to share it with my students.   I'm always thrilled any time there is an opportunity to incorporate new books about Texas into the curriculum.  My students just fell in love with Rip and they are still talking about him today.  I also found out via Instagram that apparently there in a parade for Rip each year in Eastland, Texas.  If only, we could travel that far for a field trip.  How cool would that be?



Here are a few of the activities we did along with the book.  There are so many cross-curricular activities that could be done with this book.  We spent a week on this story, but we could have easily spent another week on it.



 





All of the Rip activities can be found by clicking the image below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3Cmz2vCWLe6bU9idTBaOTJVU2c/view?usp=sharing
If you are interested in this adorable book, you can purchase A Rip Snortin' Tale...of a Toad directly from the author, Ruth Bates.  Her e-mail is listed in the image above. 

 I'd love to give away a free autographed copy to one lucky reader.  Simply leave a comment below with your e-mail and I will contact the winner via e-mail.  I will choose a winner Friday, April 3, 2015.