M.A.D. about first grade: Apple Book

Today we finished our Apple CLOSE reading book. It's a two day process to complete the book because I don't want to overwhelm the kiddos by shoving it all down their throat in one day. Plus it gives them an extra day of reading it with me before they take it home to read it for their reading logs. Here's a step by step of our book.
First we read it one time through without doing any vocabulary front loading. Then we go back page by page and circle any words that the kids do not know the meaning of.

This seems to work better than front loading it. So instead of here's the meaning of 10 words you have no idea what they are let's talk about one at a time. Also, there are many times that they already know some of the words but words that I may not have thought about they don't.

This is an example. I had no idea they wouldn't know the words "squeezed". But one of the top girls raised her hand and said she didn't know the meaning of that word.

Next we read it again. This time to find out what the author is trying to tell us with the book.

We collect the books and save them for tomorrow to work on the comprehension. We begin by reading the book again. I always tell them "let's read it like first graders" which means quicker and not like a robot.

Then we begin with the first reading comprehension question.

We go back through the story and circle the answer with the color the question says to use.

My main goal is for them to prove how they know that is the correct answer.

I also give them a little time to color....well those who have finished writing their sentences. I do have those students who take FOREVER to write a simple sentence.

Here are more of the students works.