How to use Fancy Nancy Bonjour Butterfly to teach primary school students to recall main events from a story and increase reading comprehension by creating a comic strip.
Students will fun have sharpening their story recall and sequencing skills while building their vocabularies in this art-inspired reading comprehension lesson.
Comprehension Lesson Objectives
The students will identify nine main events in the story.
The students will order the events in the correct sequence.
Materials for Comic Strip Lesson
Fancy Nancy Bonjour, Butterfly by Jane O’Connor [Harper Collins, 2008]
Prior Knowledge Connection to Fancy Nancy, Bonjour Butterfly
The teacher will tell the students about a time when she went to a fancy party. She will talk about what she wore and what she did.
She will ask the students if they have ever been to a dress-up party. She will ask them what types of fancy things they wore and saw.
The teacher will tell the students that they are going to read a story about a very fancy little girl who gets invited to two parties on the same day
Comic Strip Lesson Introduction
The teacher will read the story to the students and ask questions as she reads to increase comprehension and interaction with the text.
She will guide the students to use the pictures to figure out the meaning of the “fancy” words it in the story.
The class will then discuss the story.
Comic Strip Lesson Details
The class will review the book and choose the nine main events from the story.
The teacher will write each event on a strip of paper and tape it to the chalkboard.
When all of the events are on the board the teacher will guide the class to place the events in the correct order.
Comic Strip Lesson Conclusion
The teacher will hand out a sheet of construction paper to each student.
She will show the students how to fold the paper so that they end up with nine squares. The teacher will have them number the squares in the corner of each box.
The students will draw a picture to represent each main event in one of the squares. When they are finished they will have a comic strip representing the plot of the story.
Extension Activity for Fancy Nancy Bonjour, Butterfly
The students will make the Fancy Nancy character from the story using old-fashioned clothespins.
They can use magic markers or paint pens to draw Fancy Nancy’s face on the ball of the clothespin. They can choose what kind of face they want to make to represent her different feelings in the story.
They can use string or yarn for hair and a coffee filter for the butterfly wings.
To decorate the wings the students can paint the coffee filters with watercolor paint.
On the base of the clothespin the students can write their favorite “fancy” word from the story that describes the Nancy they have created.
The Fancy Nancy butterflies can be displayed from strings around the classroom.
After the lesson encourage students to use comic strips to help them comprehend other types of text. For example, they can create a comic strip about a new science topic they read about in their science book. Teachers can also have students make mini-comic strips as part of an assessment in any subject area.
The copyright of the article Fancy Nancy Comprehension Lesson in Primary School Lesson Plans is owned by Megan Sheakoski. Permission to republish Fancy Nancy Comprehension Lesson in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
