Teaching Kindergarteners Story Elements with Ezra Jack Keats

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is a kindergarten classic. First published in 1962, this book about a small boy and his adventures in the snow has delighted generations of young children.  

For several years now, I have done an author study on Ezra Jack Keats. I've focused on the series of books about Peter, the small boy who is featured in The Snowy Day.  Peter appears in six of the books that follow The Snowy Day.

In each of these books, Peter faces problems, finds solutions, and matures a little bit more.
He encounters the same problems as many of our students.  For example, in Peter's Chair, he must deal with becoming an older brother.  In A Letter to Amy he anticipates the ridicule of his friends when he invites a girl to his birthday party.  In Goggles, he has to escape a gang of bullies in his neighborhood.  So, these books offer young children the opportunity to identify problems and solutions in books which have real applications to their own lives.

We read the books in what seems to be the timeline of Peter's life :

After we read each book, we list the characters and describe the settings in the book on a simple poster.  Then we gather in a circle to view my sketches of the major events in the book.  Students take turns finding the next event in sequence and we tape it to the chart.

If you'd like copies of my drawings of the events in each book, please click on the book's title:
The Snowy Day
Whistle for Willie
Goggles
A Letter for Amy
Peter's Chair
Pet Show

Finally, we discuss the problem which Peter faces in each book.  I help the students with the wording and write it on one half of a sheet of construction paper which I've cut like a jigsaw puzzle piece.  After we discuss and write the solution on the other half sheet of the construction paper, the students see how the problem and solution fit together.

Throughout our kindergarten days, problems do arise, right?  Someone needs a bandaid, someone's feelings are hurt, someone can't find a pencil.  Once we arrive at the solution, we signal that the problem is solved by folding our hands together.  It's a fun and calming way to reinforce the concept that (nearly) every problem has a solution.

There are other great reasons to read books by Ezra Jack Keats like the ways in which they celebrate diversity and creativity.  I really like the website of The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation and especially the lesson plans offered on this page.

I hope I've shared some new ideas for a kindergarten classic!