Becca Wilson

North Ridge Elementary

2nd grade ELA/Math, Lee Ann Rattan

Chrysanthemum Lesson

Objective: Students will be able to answer comprehension questions with fluency about the
book, Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. Students will be able to cooperative create a bar
graph of the length of students’ names in the class.

TEKS: 6B: The student is expected to ​generate questions about text before, during, and after
reading to deepen understanding and gain information, 6E: make connections to personal
experiences, ideas in other texts, and society. 10B: The student is expected to organize a
collection of data with up to four categories using pictographs and bar graphs with intervals of
one or more.

Setting: Whole group, 45 minutes

Materials: Chrysanthemum book, whiteboard, comprehension worksheet, post-it notes, bar

graph papers

Pre-Lesson:

● Ask students:
○ If you could have another name, what would it be? Why?
○ What do you like about your name? Dislike?
● We are going to read Chrysanthemum, by Kevin Henkes today. Who has read this book
before?
● As we read, think about how important our names are and how they make us unique.

Read Chrysanthemum Aloud

● I will stop several places during the reading based on students’ comments and
responses to Pre-Lesson questions.

ELA Lesson:

● Let’s go back to our seats and talk about some key parts of this story.
● I will fill out the Chrysanthemum Comprehension worksheet under the document camera
with students. Students will solicit their responses to questions and we will write them
together.
● Questions:
○ Who were the main characters in the story?
 ○ Did Chrysanthemum like her name at the beginning of the story? How could you
tell?
○ Why did Chrysanthemum begin to dislike her name?
○ What did the text say Chrysanthemum’s name means?
○ Why did Jo, Rita, and Victoria begin liking Chrysanthemum’s name?
○ If you could have any name in the world, what would it be and why?
● For #6, we will complete the activity independently.
● Students will fill out a blank name tag with their “new name”. They can decorate it as
they please.

Math Lesson:

● I am going to hand you one sticky note. On this sticky note I want you to write your name
and the number of letters in your name.
○ I will model this under document camera
● When you have finished, come place your sticky note where it belongs on our class bar
graph on the whiteboard.
● Then, you can fill out your bar graph paper with the data from our graph!
● Post-Questions:
○ Who has the shortest name? The longest?
○ Which bar is the longest? What does this tell us?
Appendix