Focus Story: 
Who Took the Cookies From the Cookie Jar? by Rozanne Lanczak Williams

Companion Story:
 The Missing Tarts by B.G. Hennessy

Companion Rhyme: 
The Queen of Hearts

 

Day 1

Old Favorites:  Reread charts/poems from previous stories

Prior Knowledge: 

Almost all students love cookies! Present students with two or three different types of cookies, still inside the original packaging. See if students can assist in reading the name of each cookie, find familiar letters, logos, etc.  Give each child one of each type of cookie to taste. Let students help to make a class graph showing the students' favorite cookie. Discuss the results (using the terms equal, more than, less than, etc.).

 Have students watch as you place the leftover cookies away.  Discus the different types of containers families might use to store cookies in (bags, plastic storage containers, wrapped in plastic wrap, cookie jars, etc.)

Focus Story: 

Explain that in this week's story, a Queen bakes cookies and places them in a cookie jar so that later, her, her family, and her animal friends can each have one. However, someone keeps taking cookies from the cookie jar! 

Introduce title, author, and illustrator; Discuss the animals on the cover and discuss whether the story may be real or fictional; Picture walk making sure to count the number of cookies in the cookie jar and to discuss what the animals are doing; Read aloud for enjoyment and to see who did take the cookies from the cookie jar.

    Day 2

    Focus Story: 

    Reread- Shared Reading (letting students join in on the repetitive questioning); Lead students in a clapping pattern game using the refrain from the story.  Sit in a circle and begin a clapping pattern such as clap, slap. Once students are familiar with the clapping pattern, begin the chant, inserting students' names.

    Companion Rhyme:

    Introduce companion nursery rhyme 'The Queen of Hearts' as a Nursery Rhyme Land mystery that you need help to solve.  Read aloud the poem and discuss what they know from the clues in the poem (intro words such as 'tarts' and 'knave' by discussing with the students what was stolen and who stole them).  Discuss what the poem did not tell us (why the knave took the tarts, where the knave went, etc.)  

    Ask students to brainstorm ways the Queen could find the knave and to consider who could help her in her search.  Make a web of nursery rhyme characters students know who could assist the Queen of Hearts in her search (and recite the rhymes if known).

     

    Day 3

    Companion Rhyme:

    Reread companion nursery rhyme 'The Queen of Hearts' – echo read; Review the web of nursery rhyme characters who were mentioned yesterday as possible helpers in the Queen of Hearts search for the missing tarts.

    Companion Story: 

    Introduce title, author, and illustrator for The Missing Tarts;  Picture walk looking closely to see which nursery rhyme characters are assisting the Queen of Hearts; Read for enjoyment;  Discuss where the Knave went, why he took the tarts, the Queen's response, whether what the Knave did was right, what he could have done differently, etc.

    Focus Story: 

    Reread- Shared Reading (with half of the class reading the accused animals' lines and the other half reading the accuser's lines); Introduce the interactive retelling chart containing words from the story;  Have students find/mask the letters c, j, y, n; Sit in a circle and begin a clapping pattern similar to yesterday. Begin the chant, but this time students say the name of the student sitting to the left of them and pull out a letter from a cookie jar that is being passed around.  For example,

    (Pretend Alan takes a letter cookie from the cookie jar and holds it up for all to see.  It is the letter Cc.)

    All Students:  "Alan took the 'Cc' from the cookie jar."
    Alan:   "Who me?"
    All Students:   "Yes you!"
    Alan:   "Not me?"
    All Students:   "Then Who?"

    (Alan passes the cookie jar and the next student pulls out a letter.)

     

    Day 4

    Focus Story: 

    Reread- Shared Reading (with one third of the class reading the accused animals' lines, one third reading the accuser's lines, and one third reading who took the cookies); Use interactive writing to write 1-3 sentences about who took the cookies from the cookie jar.

    Companion Rhyme: 

    Reread companion nursery rhyme 'The Queen of Hearts' (pausing for students to fill in the rhyming words);  Ask students to point out the words that rhyme; Explain to students that you have pictures of other items that rhyme with the words 'day' and 'away'.  Ask them to point out the letters that are the same in those two rhyming words. Present the word family 'ay' pictures one at a time, discussing with the students what they already know about each, the name of each, how it is used, etc. ('ay' Word Family Picture Cards)

    Companion Story:  Reread The Missing Tarts (pausing for students to insert the rhyming words).

     

    Day 5

    Companion Story:  Reread The Missing Tarts (pausing for individual students to insert the rhyming words).

    Companion Rhyme: 

    Reread companion nursery rhyme 'The Queen of Hearts' (Letting students take turns being the Queen (mixing, kneading, putting tarts in oven, looking for her tarts) and the Knave (tiptoeing, quietly taking the tarts, running away)); Display all of the 'ay' word family picture cards face up on the floor.  Ask students to listen carefully to clues in the riddles in order to locate the picture that the riddle is describing. Once found, reread each riddle with students inserting the name of the matching picture. ('ay' Word Family Riddle Cards)

    Focus Story: 

    Have students assist in rereading the story by using the interactive retelling charts, switching the name and picture of each animal.

    Take Home: 

    Work with students to make their own interactive retelling booklets that have the same wording as the class interactive retelling chart. Students work to write in the missing beginning, ending, or middle consonant letter of each character from the story as well as a few of the letters from the title (t, c, j, a, p, d, g, f, s, n, k) and then color the booklet.  Reread as a class and then students take home the booklet to share with their families over and over!  (Who Took the Cookies? retelling booklet- to print, cut, staple)

    Related Read Aloud Stories/Poems

    Focus Story: Who Took the Cookies From the Cookie Jar? by Rozanne Lanczak Williams
    Companion Story: The Missing Tarts by B.G. Hennessy
    Companion Rhyme: The Queen of Hearts

    Who Stole the Cookies? by Judith Moffatt
    Who Took the Cookies From the Cookie Jar? by Bonnie Lass
    Kinderkittens: Who Took the Cookie From the Cookie Jar? by Stephanie Calmenson
    Each Peach, Pear, Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
    Whose Tracks Are These: A Clue Book of Familiar Forest Animals by Jim Nail

     

    Possible Cross Curricular Connections

    Math:

    1) Use measuring skills to make The Queen of Hearts Tarts and then graph whether students liked them
    2) Various cookie ideas (Scroll through our Family Night Activities related to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie)

      Literacy:

      1) Play Cookie Tray Letter/Sound Bingo

      2) Use cookie letter / sound match puzzles
      3) Create a Venn Diagram comparing versions of Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar
      4) Focus on Sight Words- the, yes, not
      5) Oral retelling
      6) Practice using details to describe objects

      Music/Movement: clapping patterns/body movement patterns