Mentor Text {First Snow in the Woods}

Happy Sunday night!  After a fun day in Canada to see a Wiggles show (even with a daughter who is still under the weather), I am relaxing and catching some much awaited fall season premieres.  Anyone else watch Revenge?  It is my favorite new"er" show! 

Since there are five Sundays in September, Collaboration Cuties has a Halloween/Fall theme for their weekly mentor text linky.  Fall is my favorite season! :)

I am linking up a book that I absolutely LOVE called First Snow in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick.  It is a beautiful book and the photography takes me into the woods where I can almost feel the stillness and beauty of that first snowfall of the season.  In New York, our first snowfall occurs in the fall and usually happens at the end of October to mid November.

From Amazon:  Readers are taken on a beautiful photographic journey deep into the autumn woods as the animals of the forest get ready for the year's first winter storm. They hear the cries from the great gray owl who came down from the far north carrying the warning, "Winter is coming early this year! Prepare." From the very first page, readers will be fascinated by the exquisite photographs of wildlife amid a background of vibrant autumn reds and golds. Will the animals be ready for the cold, hard winter to come? Winner of a Mom's Choice Awards -- 2008 Gold Recipient!

Here are just a few pictures I took of the stunning pages in this book:

The book is full of vivid language and imagery.

From this opening line (simile): "The northern lights faded bright to dim, like a distant torch flickering across the cold, night sky" to other lines such as "Dewy webs hung on goldenrod and covered the morning fields" and "Dew sparkled on fragile webs where a family of deer grazed," the reader is enticed by the play of words accompanied with the photographs of beautiful animals and scenery.

Personification is sprinkled throughout as well as the animals prepare for the winter in various ways.

"Have you heard?" asked the red squirrel.  "The great gray owl is on his way from the far north.  He only stays here during the harshest winters."

"In a morning meadow far away, fog tiptoed in without a sound." 

A red maple lead held stubbornly, twisting and turning on its stem.  "Let it happen," nudged the breeze.

The author's of this book also have a blog here and there is a video that accompanies this book!  I don't own it and have never seen it, but here is the movie trailer.

I created this freebie graphic organizer for my students to use.  

Students complete the table by referring to details and examples from the text to describe how the various animals in the story prepare for winter.  Most 4th graders could tell you ways these animals prepare for winter without reading this story (especially in my neck of the woods where it is very rural) but sometimes that makes it difficult for students to actually USE only the text based details.  This is a skill that 4th graders struggle with.  CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Be sure to check out the other Halloween/Fall themed mentor texts linked up at Collaboration Cuties!