Beginning Middle End for author visit

Hi friends!

I am in the midst of planning for our return to school tomorrow. We are fortunate to have author/illustrator David Catrow visiting our campus soon. A group of first grade teachers asked me to come up with an activity to prepare students for his visit AND meet some of our state standards.

So, I created a beginning, middle and end activity, and added it to my TPT store. One of our first grade TEKS is to "retell a story's beginning, middle, and end with attention to the sequence of events." It's not too complicated, but I couldn't find a printable that I liked that was already made.  Here's a preview of what my printable looks like:

On one side of the page, students will write what happens in the beginning, middle and end.

On the other side, they will draw what happens in the beginning, middle, and end. Since I work with the more able reading groups, they should be able to do both. And since our visitor is both an author and an illustrator, I want our students to think about BOTH the words and the pictures.

In any event, if this would be useful to you to use with a reading or book club group, you can purchase it by clicking here to go to my TPT shop.

I hope you are energized by your break and ready to go back to school and inspire your students! Will you look as calm as this picture? (I think I'll be there after I watch the new episode of Downton Abbey.)