Nydia Carrizoza, Daniel Martinez,

Belinda Ramos, & Emma Ritter

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Grade Level: Third Grade
Objectives:

Students will be able to recognize the main idea of the text

Make a conclusion from the reading text
Be able to recognize the cause and effect of the reading material
Students will be able to use the writing process to brainstorm an idea, turn it into a rough
draft, revise and edit, and make a final draft
Students will be able to identify healthy versus unhealthy foods

Goals:

Able to identify healthy foods as opposed to unhealthy

Ability to describe a certain food using proper adjectives for that food

Focus Activity:

Ask students to write on a piece of paper their three favorite snacks

Each student will come up to the board and write down their number one favorite snack
As a class, we will go through the list and decide/determine which ones are healthy snack
and what is not considered healthy

Book Intro:
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett and drawn by Ron Barrett
A family is preparing a meal for the day. At the end of the day, Grandpa tells a story at bedtime
that is about making good healthy food choices. The town Chewandswallow was comfortable
with being fed junk food three times a day until the junk food took over the town. On the days
that healthy food poured down the towns people were unaccepting of the change. The food
choices progressively got worse and because of this the towns people had to abandon
Chewandswallow.
Writing Assignment:

Research what is healthy versus unhealthy snacks (food pyramid)

Make a Venn diagram comparing healthy snacks and unhealthy snacks
Color code the diagram green for healthy foods, red for unhealthy and blue for snacks
that are both healthy/unhealthy
Using the Venn diagram, pick one of the snacks and make a web using adjectives to
describe the food choice
Write a first/rough draft describing the snack and why its your food of choice along with
drawing a rough picture of the food choice
Switch rough drafts with an elbow partner to revise each others papers
Edit any corrections or any helpful hints given by elbow partner

Write final draft to be handed in with a neatly drawn picture of the food choice

Materials:

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett and drawn by Ron Barrett
Food pyramid chart
Paper
Web outline
Pencils
Markers/Crayons

Assessment:
CATEGORY
Organization

Quality of
Information

First Draft

Mechanics

Diagrams &
Illustrations

4
Information is very
organized with wellconstructed paragraphs
and subheadings.
Information clearly
relates to the main
topic. It includes
several supporting
adjectives and
complete sentences.

3
2
Information is organized Information is
with well-constructed organized, but
paragraphs.
paragraphs are not wellconstructed.
Information clearly
Information clearly
relates to the main
relates to the main
topic. It provides 1-2
topic. No details and/or
supporting adjectives
adjectives used and
and some complete
complete sentences
sentences.
were missing.

1
The information appears to
be disorganized.

Detailed draft is neatly

presented and includes
all required
information.
No grammatical,
spelling or punctuation
errors.

Draft includes all

required information
and is legible.

Draft is missing required

information and is difficult
to read.

Venn diagram and

illustrations are neat,
accurate and add to the
readers understanding
of the topic.

Venn diagram and

illustrations are accurate
and add to the readers
understanding of the
topic.

Almost no grammatical, A few grammatical

Many grammatical, spelling,
spelling or punctuation spelling, or punctuation or punctuation errors.
errors
errors.

TEKS:
110.14 English Language Arts and Reading
(b) Knowledge and skills

Draft includes most

required information
and is legible.

Information has little or

nothing to do with the main
topic. No adjectives or
complete sentences used.

Venn diagram and

illustrations are neat and
accurate and sometimes
add to the readers
understanding of the
topic.

Venn diagram and

illustrations are not accurate
OR do not add to the readers
understanding of the topic.

(13) Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Expository Text. Students

analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about expository text and provide
evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to:
(A) identify the details or facts that support the main idea;
(B) draw conclusions from the facts presented in text and support those
assertions with textual evidence;
(C) identify explicit cause and effect relationships among ideas in texts
(17) Writing/Writing Process. Students use elements of the writing process
(planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing) to compose text. Students
are expected to:
(A) plan a first draft by generating ideas for writing (e.g., drawing, sharing
ideas, listing key ideas);
(B) develop drafts by sequencing ideas through writing sentences;
(C) revise drafts by adding or deleting words, phrases, or sentences;
(D) edit drafts for grammar, punctuation, and spelling using a teacherdeveloped rubric; and
(E) publish and share writing with others.
(21) Oral and Written Conventions/Conventions. Students understand the function
of and use the conventions of academic language when speaking and writing.
Students continue to apply earlier standards with greater complexity. Students are
expected to:
(A) understand and use the following parts of speech in the context of
reading, writing, and speaking:
(iii) adjectives (e.g., descriptive: old, wonderful; articles: a, an, the)
115.5. Health Education, Grade 3.
(b) Knowledge and skills
(11) Personal/interpersonal skills. The student recognizes critical-thinking,
decision-making, goal-setting, and problem-solving skills for making healthpromoting decisions. The student is expected to:
(C) explain the positive and negative consequences of making a healthrelated choice

References:

Barrett, Judi, and Ron Barrett. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. New York: Atheneum, 1988.
Print.
"Chapter 110. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading
Subchapter A. Elementary." 19 TAC Chapter 110, Subchapter A. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.
<http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter110/ch110a.html>.
"Chapter 115. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Health Education Subchapter A.
Elementary." 19 TAC Chapter 115, Subchapter A. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.
<http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter115/ch115a.html>.
RubiStar Home. RubiStar Home. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.
<http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php>.