Winter Must Read Mentor Text: Snow

I must say I'm enjoying winter break to it's fullest! I had a great lounging day yesterday and I spent the few days after Christmas cleaning up my house! I it feels great to have some time to get things done around the house. However, I have been ignoring my teacher bag by the door overflowing with feature articles. But, they can wait...

Today, I want to link up with Amanda and Stacia from Collaboration Cuties for a Winter Must Read Mentor Text! I have several favorite winter Mentor Texts. I love Snow Day by Lester Laminack to teach point of view. Plus, the book makes for a great read before an elusive first snow day. I also the classic book The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. This book is great for teaching onomatopoeia and powerful verbs.

But my favorite is...

Snow by Cynthia Rylant is quite possibly my favorite winter mentor text. This book does not disappoint and is loaded with author's craft examples. My favorite way to use Snow by Cynthia Rylant is for teaching figurative language.

The book is loaded down with similes and personification. My students are simile and metaphor experts but always need help with some of the harder types of figurative language like personification.

Here's a few personification examples:

"Snow that comes softly in the night...afraid to knock"

Snow "Wait(s) in the yard"

"Snow tells you..."

"Snow will take you there.."

For this book, I like to have a copy of the text typed up for my students. Before we read we the book we'd review the definition and some basic examples of personification. Then during reading, we highlight all the examples of personification found in the novel. You can get resources for teaching figurative language including personification from Erin at I'm Lovin' Lit's Interactive Reading Literature Notebook handouts. I've used her interactive notebook templates several times this year! I love them! You should check out Lovin' Lit on TPT! She has amazing resources! She also has a Figurative Language Unit available on her store. 

Handout we glue into our notebooks inspired by Interactive Reading Literature Notebooks:  

(Click the image for my handout)

After using Snow for more examples.... we'd use examples from Snow as our example for personification to include in our figurative language flipbook notes. The idea for the flipbooks once again is from Erin's interactive notebook handouts. She also has a  free bonus simile lesson available in here TPT store if you need to teach or review similes.  

Here's my handout & an example template from Erin's free simile unit:

If you're moving into poetry during the winter months, Snow by Cynthia Rylant is the book for you! This book is great for reviewing similes as well as providing numerous examples of personification. Rylant definitely makes the "snow" come alive within her book!

Hope everyone is enjoying break!