Story Sequencing Lesson Plans That Promote Creativity

Are you looking for new ways to teach sequencing? This can be a challenge for many teachers. There are some very common activities that you can use, such as listing what happened from beginning to end, or having a student retell or summarize the story verbally or in writing. Though these ideas can be used from time to time, having a toolkit of ideas to address this, or any skill, makes planning and implementing lessons less stressful, and more interesting for both the teacher and the students.

Using a variety of strategies not only increases student interest, it helps to provide differentiated instruction. Sequencing activities can be modified to meet the diverse needs of the students in the class. Graphic organizers, such as flow charts or bubble maps, can be used to provide students with a basic visual chart for organizing the events in a story. The students that would enjoy this would be your visual learners. For kinesthetic learners, creating a flip book, or writing events of the story on note cards and sorting them can be an effective strategy. These students would also benefit from making a human timeline in which they are each given a large sheet of paper on which to write an event from the story and then they can put themselves in a line in the order of the events in the story. Students that are more advanced can work independently creating a Power Point or Movie Maker presentation of the events in a story.

Lesson planning can be a time consuming event. Having great ideas for addressing the skill you are teaching makes life so much easier. What is most important is that the students enjoy and benefit from the variety of ideas you have to share. Below are some lessons that can make story sequencing lesson plans motivating.

Story Sequencing Lesson Plans:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Students create a collage, and put the events in the story in sequence. During the reading of the book, the teacher stops periodically to have the students summarize what has happened so far. After the story has been read, the students are given paper and scraps of wrapping paper. The students create collages for the main events of the story, and put them together in a book.

Sequencing a Story with Pictures: Text and Talk

Students sequence stories about a trip using graphic organizers that they create. Students create a graphic organizer that contains illustrations of what happens in their story. Students then use the graphic organizer to share the story with the class. This lesson contains a rubric for the activity that will be shared with students before the activity begins.

Storyboard of "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever"

Students read "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever" by Steven Kroll and practice their comprehension skills by identifying events in chronological order. The teacher reads the book aloud to the class. Students pick eight events and create a storyboard on a large sheet of paper. The students write a sentence and illustrate it.

Open Sesame: A Magical World of Reading

This six lesson unit, found in the third grade literature section, creates a magical world of reading for students through a variety of activities using music, food, costumes, artifacts, and maps. The lessons in this unit are based around the story "Aladdin and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights". In lesson six of this unit, the students are assigned sections of the story. The teacher will can determine how the story is divided. Students create a representation of that part of the story using Kid Pix.