The Cat Who
Became A Poet
Unit 3 Imagination
Lesson 2
Objectives:
 This week in this lesson:




You will learn base words and suffixes.
You will learn about contractions.
You will learn about irregular verb forms.
You will learn about long vowel spellings.
Word Knowledge
Day 1 Reading 1.8
 differ different differently difference
 peace peaceful peacefully peacefulness
 Identify the base words and suffixes.
 Base words: differ
peace
 Suffixes: ent, ly, ence, ful, ness
Word Knowledge
Day 1
 doesn’t
you’d
won’t
you’re
I’ll
 What kinds of words are these?
 Contractions are two words put together to form
a single shorter word.
 Does + not you + would will + not
you + are
I + will
Contractions are word sandwiches!
Word Knowledge
Day 1
 make made fly flew think thought
 These are irregular verb forms.
 hearing
nibbling
smiling
wagging
 These words are from our selection.
 eat
hearing
feel
real
tree
 These words are from this weeks spelling
list. They all have long vowel sounds.
Word Knowledge
Day 1
 “If only you’d listen to my poem you’d feel
differently about it all,” said the mouse.
 “What’s wrong with me?” he thought.
 Can you identify any contractions?
 you’d, you + would, what’s, what + is
Word Knowledge
Day 1
 Poetry has got into your blood and you’re
stuck with it for the rest of your life.
 Apples that we eat are picked from a
tree.
 Can you identify any long vowel sounds?
 poetry, eat, tree
Build Background
Day 1 Reading 2.2
 Activate Prior Knowledge
 What do you know about poetry?
 We have learned about imagination from the other
poetry in this unit.
 How can imagination help us see things in a new
way?
 Background Information
 “The Cat Who Became a Poet” is fantasy.
 The author uses figurative language in this
selection.
Prepare and Preview
Reading 2.6
Reading Trans. 46
 Turn to page 216 in your textbook.
 Let’s read the Title and Author Illustrator
together.
 Let’s read the focus questions together.
 Let’s look at the first two pages for
interesting words, pictures and clues.
 You might want to set your own purpose
for reading this selection.
Clues, Problems,
Wonderings
 Can any one find any clues about our
story?
 Can anyone find a problem they have
with our story?
 Can anyone find a wondering about our
story?
Selection Vocabulary
Reading 1.6
Reading Tran. 18
 We will use apposition and context clues
the find meanings for these words.
 Let’s say these word together.
 Poet
 Temperature
Nibbling
Commanded
Alarm
Burglars
 Let’s clap out the syllables for each word.
Poet
A person who writes or
composes poems
 I am a poet with a poem to
write.
 I want to be a poet, a person
who writes poems.
Poem: When I was in 3rd
grade… By : Adriana










When I was in 3rd grade
On the play ground I always played
Like soldiers we did invade
On the grass I always laid
Under the cool shade
Around the classroom we would parade
My lunch I would trade
My friends that never did betray
I hope the memories never fade
In the 3rd grade I should have stayed
nibbling
taking small bites
 The great mouse Night with the starry
tail/Slides over the hills and trees/Eating
the crumbs in the corners of day/And
nibbling the moon like cheese.
 I often see the cat nibbling her cat food
and sneaking away unnoticed by the dog
alarm
sudden fear;
a sense of danger
 Some time later he woke up in
alarm.
 I don’t want to surprise you or
cause you any alarm.
temperature
degree of hotness or
coldness measured with a
thermometer
 She took the cat’s temperature and
gave him some magic medicine that
tasted of dandelions.
 Mom took my temperature when I
told her my throat hurt.
commanded
ordered
 “Now talk!” she commanded.
 The general commanded the
soldier to do push ups.
burglars
people who steal;
thieves
 He guards the house from cats,
burglars/And any threat of
peacefulness.
 The burglars carefully planned the
robbery, but the dog’s loud bark
stopped them.
Reading Recommendations
Oral Reading Reading 1.3, Listening/Speak. 1.9
As I read the selection I will…
 Make and confirm predictions to help me
understand the story better.
 Ask Questions about what I am reading if
I don’t understand something.
 Summarize the story to make sure I
understand the important concepts.
 Let’s read pages 216-221 together.
Discussing Strategy Use
 What questions did you ask yourself as
you were reading?
 Where did you stop to summarize?
 Did you confirm any predictions?
 What predictions were correct?
Discussing the Selection
Reading 2.6, 3.1
 Let’s use the Handing Off Process to discuss
the following questions…
 What happened when the cat ate the mouse?
 How did the cat feel about what happened?
 What did the cat learn?
 What did the cat decide?
 Record your reaction to this story in your
response journal.
Investigating Concepts
Beyond the Text
Reading Tran. 17
T.E. 223A
 Let’s make a schedule for our
investigations.
 Complete pages 62-63 in your Inquiry
Journal.
 If you are interested in poetry you may
wish to do a literature search.
 Our Inquiry Journal page 64 has a page
that may help with your search.
Word Analysis
Eng. Lang. Conv. 1.8
T.E. 223F
 This week we are learning about words with
the long /e/ sound.
 These are words from our selection that have
the long /e/ sound.
 eat hearing feel
real tree
 These are our vocabulary skill words: hopeless
sadly
peacefulness
carelessly tricky
 Let’s take our spelling pretest.
English Language
Conventions
Eng. Lang. Conv. 1.8
T.E. 223F
 Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics GUM
 Contractions
 We are going to review page 267 in our
267 to learn more about contractions.
 Let’s do pages 64-65 in our
Comprehension and Language Arts Skills
workbook.
Writing Process Strategies
Writing 2.0
Trans. 3
 Rhyming Poem-Couplet or Triplet
 We are going to review pages 168-169 in
our Language Arts Handbook to learn
more about poetry.
 Let’s read some poems together.
 Let’s talk about some ideas for writing a
poem of our own.
(Trans. 3)
Writing Process Strategies
 This is the rubric I will use to grade your finished poem:
 Total Points 10
 1. The lines sound smooth and end in rhyming words.
(2 Points)
 2. The poem serves its purpose of entertaining,
explain, or other stated purpose. (2 Points)
 3. The sounds of words as well as their meanings are
used to communicate. (2 Points)
 4. The final copy is neat, clean, and easy to read. (2
Points)
 5. Mechanics: spelling is correct. (2 Points)
Day 2 Developing Oral
Language
 differ
different
 peace
peaceful
differently
peacefully
difference
peacefulness
 Can someone use one of these words in
a complete sentence?
Day 2 Developing Oral
Language
 Can we combine any words from the following
lines to create titles to stories we would like to
read?
 differ different differently difference
 peace peaceful peacefully peacefulness
 doesn’t you’d won’t you’re I’ll
 make made fly flew think thought
 hearing nibbling smiling wagging
 eat hearing feel real tree
Second Read
 We are going to read from our Open
Court books pages 216-221.
 We are going to focus on using the
comprehension skill of Fantasy and
Reality.
Checking Comprehension
Reading 2.3
 How does the cat use his imagination in this story?
 He learns to see the world in new ways, the way a poet does.
 What does the cat learn about poetry?
 He realizes it is tricky and can have more than one meaning. He
thinks that peotry might be the world’s way of talking about itself.
 Why do you think the cat says he will never eat another poet?
 Eating the poet mouse has changed his life enough; he doesn’t want
it to change any more.
 How does the selection add to your understanding of the theme
Imagination?
 It helps us see that words and poetry have the power to spark
imagination
Investigation
Concept/Question Board
 Question
 We are going to post
any new concepts or
questions that we
have after reading
The Cat Who
Became a Poet.
 Concept
 If anyone wants to
look for examples of
poems that show
imagination we can
add those to our
Concept/Question
board.
Word Analysis
Eng. Lang. Conv. 1.8
Reading 1.1, 1.8
 Word Sorting
 Let’s review the sound spelling card for
the long /e/ sound.
 We are going to sort these words into two
groups. Words with long /e/ and words
with short /e/.
 meat met
beast
 best
eat
here
at
Vocabulary
 We are going to learn about suffixes.
 Can someone find the suffix in the word
sadly?
 Base word = sad Suffix= ly
 Complete pages 54 and 55 in your
Spelling and Vocabulary Skills workbook.
English Language
Conventions
Eng. Lang. Conv. 1.8
Contractions are a word sandwich
 Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics GUM
 Let’s look in our Language Arts Handbook
pages 267 to learn more about contractions.
 Can you find the contractions in these
sentences?
 Dogs don’t eat at the table.
 It’s a long way to Tipperary.
 Wouldn’t you like some more milk?
 Don’t do+not it’s it+is
wouldn’t would+not
Writing Process Strategies
Writing 2.0
Listening/Speak. 1.4
 Today we are going to learn about writing rhyming
poem with 2 or 3 lines.
 A rhyming poem with 2 lines is called a couplet, a
rhyming poem with 3 lines is called a triplet.
 We can use onomatopoeia (sound words) like buzz,
sizzle, bang, roar, and whoosh.
 Let’s look in our Language Arts Handbook pages 210211 to see more sound words (onomatopoeias)
 We are going to do pages 66-67 in our Comprehension
and Language Arts Skills workbook to learn more about
using sounds of words.
Writer’s Workbook
 Prewriting
 Let’s look at page 34 and 35 in our
writer’s workbook to get ideas for our
own poems.
Day 3
Phonics and Fluency
 mouse paws crowd poison
 Austin annoy count
noise
 These words have a diphthong in them. A
diphthong is two consecutive vowels that
blend together. Let’s look at our blue
cards to review the diphthong spellings.
Day 3 Phonics and Fluency
 dirty over churn started
 charcoal turned Thursday
temperature
 These words have an r controlled
spelling found on the armadillo and bird
card. These spellings blend together to
form one sound.
Day 3 Phonics and Fluency
 mother brother observe canyon
 These words have a schwa /e/ sound
spelled o.
Day 3 Phonics and Fluency
 The temperature in the library was cold.
 On Thursday, we started an important project.
 Can you find the words with spellings from the
armadillo and bird cards?
 We are going to clap the syllables for these
sentences
 A cat once caught a mouse, as cats do.
 Do you see any diphthongs in this sentence?
 Caught
mouse
Meet the Author
T.E. pp. 222
 Let’s look on page 222 in our Open Court
books to find out more about Margaret
Mahy the author and Quentin Blake the
illustrator of “The Cat Who Became a
Poet.”
Meet the Author
 Even when she was little, Margaret Mahy kept her
stories in a little notebook. Do you think this was a
good idea? Why?
 The notebook became a treasury of ideas. You can take old
stories and improve them or make ideas into new stories.
 Margaret Mahy tries to tell an exciting story when she
writes. What could you do to write an exciting story like
“The Cat Who Became a Poet”?
 The best way to write an exciting story is to write about
something that your are excited about or interested in. You
should add details, include lots of action, or show characters’
feelings or thoughts.
Meet the Illustrator
 Quentin Blake says that to be a good artist you
must draw all of the time. Why do you think
Blake says this?
 By practicing, we become more talented. This is
true of anything—sports, writing, and so on.
 Quentin Blake has illustrated more than 200
books. How do you think he is able to create
so many pictures?
 By practicing all the time, because he loves his
work, and by exploring the world around him.
Review Selection
Vocabulary
 Point to the picture that matches the
word from this selection.
 poet, nibbling, alarm, temperature,
commanded, burglars
Review Selection
Vocabulary
 Match the word to the definition.
 Poet
 Nibbling
 Alarm
 Temperature
 Commanded
 Burglars
Degrees of hot or cold.
Ordered
A person who writes poems
Sudden fright or fear
People who steal
Taking small bites
View Fine Art
 We are going to turn to page 238 to look
at some examples of fine art.
 Would any one like to make a comment
about what they see or feel when they
look at these paintings?
Inquiry
 We are going to turn to page 65 in our
Inquiry Journal to form a conjecture for
our investigation.
Word Analysis
Eng. Lang. Conv. 1.8
 Spelling
 We are going to say the words with a
long /e/ sound from our spelling list
together.
 Does anyone see a word in our
classroom that has a long /e/ sound?
 We are going to do page 56 in our
Spelling and Vocabulary Skills workbook.
English Language
Conventions
Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics GUM
Eng. Lang. Conv. 1.8







Column A
He
They
We
Should
Do
Can





Column B
is
are
will
not
Can you make some contractions using words from
Column A and words from Column B with a partner?
Writing Process Strategies
Writing 2.0
 Today we are going to work on drafting a
rhyming couplet or triplet.
 We are going to use page 35 in our
Writer’s Workbook to help us organize
our ideas.
Day 4 Developing Oral
Language









mouse paws
Austin annoy
dirty
over
charcoal turned
mother brother
crowd
count
churn
Thursday
observe
poison
noise
started
temperature
canyon
My ________ did the dishes last night after dinner.
My dad used __________ to light the barbecue last weekend.
My grandmother is from _________, Texas.
When we went on our field trip to the farm, we learned how to
_________ butter.
 When the __________is hot, it is fun to go to the beach.
 My little brother and sister like to ___________me when I am
watching t.v.
Day 4
T.E. 216N
Dictation
 I will say the words aloud you will use the
cards to help you spell the words.
 Line 1:________ ________ ________
 Line 2:________ ________ ________
 Challenge Word: _______________
 Sentence: ________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
Day 4 Building Fluency
 Let’s take out our decodable book
number 24, “No Noise!”
 We are going to look for examples of the
/oi/ sound as we read, No Noise!,
together.
Literary Elements
Listen/Speak 1.4
Rhymes
Rhymes are two or more lines
of a poem that end with
rhyming words.
The Experiment
A curious lad from Dover
Crossed poison ivy with a four-leaf clover.
This young man was struck
With a rash of good luck,
Before his experiment was over.
By Joanna Fuchs
Rhythm
Rhythm is an alternating
pattern of strong and weak
sounds.
Scary Costume
by Robert Pottle
With an evil eye that stares you down
and a bulbous warty nose,
a furrowed brow, a nasty scowl,
and old outdated clothes,
my costume is the scariest
the world has ever seen.
I’m not an ogre, ghost, or ghoul:
I’m a teacher for Halloween.
Inquiry Journal
 Choosing Appropriate Sources
 We are going to do page 66 in our inquiry
Journals to find more information about
sources of information.
Word Analysis
Eng. Lang. Conv. 1.8
 Spelling
 We are going to practice using the long /e/ sound
this week.
 Let’s complete page 57 in our Spelling and
Vocabulary Skills workbook.
 Vocabulary/Suffixes
 When we use the suffix –y or –ful it means full of.
 Can we think of any examples?
 Tricky sticky
beautiful
careful
English Language
Conventions
Listen/Speak 1.7
 Listening, Speaking, Viewing
 Reading out load and reading silently is
different. When we read out loud we need to
use expression.
 We are going to practice reading a few
sentences from our selection to practice using
expression.
 Let’s work with a partner to practice a few more
sentences.
Writing Process Strategies
Writing 2.0
 Revising
 Using page 36 in our Writer’s Workbook,
we are going to revise our rhyming
poems.
 When you have finished revising bring
poem to me for a writing conference.
Day 5
General Review
 Word Knowledge: suffixes, contractions
 Vocabulary: poet, nibbling, alarm,
temperature, commanded, burglars
 Review Spelling Patterns the long /e/
sound
 Listen to the story
 Are there any questions about this story
before we take our test?
Day 5…
 Lesson Assessment
 “The Cat Who Became a Poet” (p. 6-8)
 Spelling—The long e sound
 Unit 3 Assessment, page 28
 Vocabulary Assessment
 Unit 3 Assessment, page 9
Investigation
 Unit investigation continued
 We are going to update our
Concept/Question board.
Word Analysis
English Language Conventions
Eng. Lang. Conv. 1.8
Writing 1.2
We are going to practice forming the
numbers 3 and 4.
 33333333333333333333333
 44444444444444444444444
 Write using cursive: The recipe calls for 3
eggs and 4 cups of sugar.
 took, gave, magic
Writing Process Strategies
Writing 1.2
 Editing and Publishing
 Using our Writer’s Workbook page 37 we
are going to edit and proofread our
poems.
 When you are finished proofreading we
will publish our poems on a new sheet of
paper and draw an illustration to go with
it.
Writing Process Strategies
 This is the rubric I will use to grade your finished poem:
 Total Points 10
 1. The lines sound smooth and end in rhyming words.
(2 Points)
 2. The poem serves its purpose of entertaining,
explain, or other stated purpose. (2 Points)
 3. The sounds of words as well as their meanings are
used to communicate. (2 Points)
 4. The final copy is neat, clean, and easy to read. (2
Points)
 5. Mechanics: spelling is correct. (2 Points)