Two of my favorite read alouds, especially for right around the 100th day of school:
Both of these delightful books are by Keiko Kasza.
Why do I love them so much?
First I read The Wolf’s Chicken Stew, which has several references to the number 100. The wolf needs to fatten up a chicken for chicken stew and so he makes her 100 pancakes, 100 doughnuts, and a 100 pound cake. And we’re pretty sure that the chicken’s chicks (there appear to be 100) are the ones who are eating it all.
And although the second title—My Lucky Day—has nothing to do with 100, it is such a delightful book that you will surely read it as a follow-up. It truly is one of my favorite kindergarten read alouds.
After reading The Wolf’s Chicken Stew, I have my students try to cut out 100 pancakes. How long does this take? Four groups of students rotate through the independent center (15 minutes), where they try to cut as many circles/ovals (i.e., pancakes) that they can from the brown rectangles provided. We roughly chop about 75 pieces of 9x12 brown construction paper into fourths and I model how to cut the corners off a rectangular piece to turn it into an oval. I explain that no tiny pancakes will count; they must be regular-size pancakes.
Later in the day—during our math period—we count the pancakes. Students sit in a large oval. I hold all the pancakes and lay out ten at a time in the formation of a ten frame. Five on the top and five on the bottom. I gather those ten up and give them to a student to hold. We count out another ten by laying them in the formation of a ten frame and give them to the neighboring student in the oval to hold. Now, we start counting by tens. Whomever is holding the first ten puts their stack above their head and calls out, “Ten!” The next student holds theirs up high and calls out, “Twenty!” This continues until all the pancakes have been counted and handed out, counting by tens every time another bunch of ten is added. In our class, we ended up with 230 pancakes. What a great exercise in counting by tens beyond 100.
At the end of the day—or early the next day—I model how to turn a pancake into a doughnut. Fold the pancake in half, press the fold, find the straight edge (not the open edge) and cut a letter C. Open the pancake and see that you just made a doughnut!
The following day, at centers, the students cut as many doughnuts as they can, using yesterday’s pancakes. Once again, during our math time, we count (by tens) how many doughnuts we have. It is always a little less than the number of pancakes we got because it’s harder to cut doughnuts than pancakes. My students ended up with 192 doughnuts.
My students love everything about this—the connections to the book, the cutting, the teamwork, the counting. And as the teacher, I love all the bang for the buck—easy planning, excellent read alouds, very little prep, and lots of community building.
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