Visualizing

Visualizing is one of the more popular "fun" ativities to do in my class. The students are currently doing the patterned reading activity and one of the days is visualizing. The students are not just drawing a picture about what they visualized, instead they are writing about what happened in the story to explain the picture. They are also writing why they chose that particular scene and why it is so important in the story.

During read-aloud I am always stopping and asking the students what picture came into their mind as I was reading. I am currently reading "Hatchet" with the students and there were some very descriptive scenes in the story that allowed the students to picture what was going on and really take them there inside the book. Some times I will ask the students to close their eyes and put their heads on their desk as I am reading so that they are just hearing the story and not being distracted by anything in the room. I will read a chapter with many different events or scenes taking place. When I am finished, I will asked the students what place they took themselves in that chapter. Sometimes we will share as a class, write it down, or draw the picture.