Sequence

When I want my students to summarize a story, they first fill in a graphic organizer with these prompts: Character(s), setting, goal, problem, steps to fix the problem and solution. After they have filled this in it makes it easier for them to write a summary in the correct sequence. They use the WHO (Character and setting), WANTED _____ (goal), BUT (problem), SO (steps to solve the problem), and FINALLY (solution) que words.
Vana

Use [sentence strips] as a manipulative for practicing story sequence. Kids arrange sentences in order. They could have numbers on the back for self checking. Another thing would be to do the same with the lines of a poem they have read or you have read to them. Another similar use would be to reinforce steps in a process, such as editing their writing.

I will often xerox pictures right from a story book that I'm reading to the students and use these to resequence the events. I laminate the pictures and place them into a small ziplock bag which I staple to the inside back cover. This way I'll always have the pictures right with the book and if the children are old enough, I'll leave the book w/pictures available for them in the book rack. The kids really enjoy this!
Jan Brett's book The Mitten is a great one for sequencing & her web site even has printable pictures of the animals!

Hi...
I teach second as well...
for sequenceing...one thing I do is I model a picture story...
I draw a simple picture on the board...
A kid at his house...
okay then he walks to the beach...
then he goes swimming..
then he eats lunch...
Im sure you see what I mean..
But I DO not use words right away...
then I have students use construction paper to draw a sequence of events...
After they draw it they show me..explain and then write about it...
I go over sequence words...first, next, after, then...those kind...
I also use reading books to show sequence and discuss what happened first...second third...
It is a hard concept but I have really seen growth with my kids by doing this..
I incorporate prediction into it and suspence when we get more advanced...
Good luck..hope this helps...

My class wrote lovely instructions for "How to Cook a Turkey". I gave them little prompts and they wrote beautiful sentences. They wrote the steps they thought would be needed to prepare it. They used first, next and last to tell the sequence.After they were proofread, recopied,I pasted them on turkey shaped colored papers and they are hanging on a bulletin board. Actually, I wanted them to go for humor, but they were quite literal and serious. I suggested to them they might wrap the turkey in gift paper, stuff it with shoes or pencils. They giggled and went on and wrote they would go buy the turkey, wash it, put on some salt and pepper or some sauce, put it in a pan, cook it for anywhere from 5 minutes to two days! Some of the children wrote what they thought would go in the stuffing (a few humorous items like candy, chocolate). They drew turkeys and made signs for the turkeys (either "eat ham", "eat more chicken", or "eat pork"!).

You can sequence just about any picture book with first graders. Start with beginning, middle, end and the concepts of before and after. Then go to past, present and future. A favorite time line to make with my students has been with the book "We're going on a bear hunt." With first graders, it's good to get them active in their learning. This book is great because it has funny sound words and the kids can act it out (in sequence).
A good book to look at a person's life past, present and future is "The Giving Tree." Hope this helps.

This will work with any story and the kids love it. I laminate picture cards for the story. On the board I place a segmented piece of poster paper. After reading the story the children are asked to find what happened in the correct sequence and place it in order on the poster board. I velcro the picture cards and the poster board strip. I ask them to write sentences using the target What's Happening for each of the picture cards. Each picture card also has one word or just a couple of words to describe picture.After this activity the children are given individual duplicate cards. They are given chopsticks and those little rubber rollies and I will call out the word on the card and they have to put a rollie on it....or I might say put three rollies on the word mud puddle...etc....we are doing theMeanies this week and that comes to mind. The children love using the chopsticks and it helps their fine motor skills emmensely.

I had my kids choose an activity that they do regularly: brush their teeth, wash the dog, make a sandwich, etc. Then they broke it up into six steps and wrote them (illustrate if time) in order onto a graphic organizer (unnumbered). They cut them out, mix them up and trade with a partner who then has to put them in the correct order.

I had my kids put them into baggies when we were done, so now we have a class set of sequence cards. They liked it a lot.

Have kids divide paper into 6 squares (by folding/drawing lines) then they must in each box list a different event in the story they read that week that happened before the next event. in each box they must use a transition word: First, second, third, next, then, last in each sentence explaining the event. draw a picture of the event in each box.

Steph,

I just substituted in a first grade classroom this week ( I am a new teacher without my own classroom), and one of the activities I taught was a sequencing lesson using ordinal words.

First, during read aloud time, I read Eric Carle's book, "The Very Busy Spider". The story is perfect for sequencing because of the spider's lengthy process to spin her web. The introduction to the seqencing activity involved handing out an index card to each student with an ordinal number word (with the number symbol written on the back to help) and asking the students to line up in the right order (I had 12 students so they lined up 1st thru 12th). Of course, this part of the lesson involved vocabulary introduction and teaching the students about ordinal numbers and their uses. The follow-up activity involved the students having to cut six pictures out(from a prepared worksheet) and glue them, in progressive order (sequence from what the spider did first to what the spider did last/sixth), on a big piece of paper. Students had to also cut out the ordinal number words (first thru sixth) which were printed on another sheet of paper. Finally, they needed to then line/glue the ordinal number words under the matching web picture.

This lesson also had an activity that integrated writing. The students who finished early could write sentences about each picture (First the spider made one strand, Second the spider spun two more lines to make a Y, Third the spider started spining around the center,...).

The activities flowed very smoothly and the students loved each part. I hope this helps. Good luck!