About the Junie B. Jones Series and This Guide

About the Junie B. Jones Series and This Guide

The lovable, mischievous Junie B. of Barbara Park's humorous series is growing up! She has graduated from kindergarten and moved up to the first grade. Follow Junie B. as she continues to get into one scrape after another. While laughing along with Junie and her friends, your students will expand their word recognition, develop a sense of story, and begin to read these early chapter books on their own.

In this guide for Junie B., First Grader: Cheater Pants, Junie B. fans learn there are lots of different ways to express thoughts and feelings. An activity spotlighting a special kind of poetry teaches budding poets that some poems don't have to rhyme. An opportunity to create and make entries into their own special journals encourages students to write with fluency and spontaneity. And a lesson on cultural understanding reveals that Native American cultures often expressed their stories in pictures on clay pots. A template for an analog clock on a companion printout will help students tell time and remember to make time for all the wonderful and important things they want to schedule in their days.


About the Books

#19 Junie B., First Grader: Cheater Pants

Junie B. Jones has all the answers when it comes to cheating. It's just plain wrong! But what about copying someone else's homework? That's not cheating, right? 'Cause homework isn't even a test! And speaking of tests . . . what if a friend shares an answer that you didn't even ask for? Sharing definitely isn't cheating . . . is it? Uh-oh. Maybe this cheating business is more complicated than Junie B. thought. Could she be a cheater pants and not even know it?


Classroom Connections

Pre-Reading Activities

Using a show of hands, ask students how many of them have friends. List with them what qualities we look for in a friend. Junie B. says that there are "bestest" friends and "regular" friends. Ask students if they agree or disagree. Can they explain the differences between the two? Have they ever had a fight with a friend? How was it resolved? Did a friend ever ask them to do something they didn't want to do or thought was bad? How did they handle the situation?

Write the word cheat on the blackboard and ask students if they know what it means. As a class, list situations that would be considered examples of cheating. Have students compare Junie B.'s use of the word borrow with Mr. Scary's use of the word stealing. Write the word trust on the blackboard and ask students if they know what it means. Have them give examples of people in their lives who are very trustworthy. Are friends always trustworthy? What happens when you lose trust in a person? Can you trust a person again after he/she has let you down?

Poetry Pallies

As Junie B. and her "pallies" have discovered, a cinquain is a five-line poem with special rules for each line. Put a cinquain format on the blackboard as follows:

_____________________Line 1: Title (noun)

______________ ____________Line 2: Two words that describe the title (adjectives)

___________ ___________ ___________Line 3: Three -ing action words (verbs)

________ _________ __________ _______Line 4: Four words that express a thought
or feeling about the title (phrase)

____________________Line 5: One word that means the same thing as the title (noun)

Discuss the different parts of speech identified in each line and have students give examples of each. Using your blackboard format, show how each of the cinquains created by Junie and the kids in Room One (except for May's!) follows these rules. Lead the whole class in the creation of cinquains based on suggested topics.

Organize students into teams and assign each team the task of sharing words and ideas with each other to create their own special cinquain. After checking that each poem is correct for form and spelling, have each team cut out shaped outlines from construction paper on their poem's topic. Then, print their cinquain on white paper and cut out in the same shaped outlines as the construction paper, but smaller. Then have the students paste their poem onto their shaped construction paper. Have each team share their poetry and art with classmates, and then post the poems in a classroom display.

Pass out the My Very Own Cinquain printer-friendly activity sheet so that your young authors can try out cinquain writing on their own.

Dear Diary

When Junie B. writes in her first-grade journal, she expresses her thoughts and feelings about what is going on in her life. Tell students that they are going to create and write their own journals as a way to freely explore their inner thoughts and create a source of ideas for their writing. You will need the following:

  • 10 sheets of white typing paper, folded in half for writing pages
  • 1 piece of construction paper, folded in half for a cover
  • markers
  • hole puncher
  • ribbon or raffia

    Place the folded sheets of white paper in the folded piece of construction paper. Punch two holes in the fold, one at top and one at bottom. Thread and tie a piece of ribbon or raffia through the holes to bind your journal. Decorate the cover with markers.

    Now that students are ready, explain how each entry must be dated, addressed, and signed. Have students keep their journal for a week. Encourage them to be creative by including poems, drawings, and song lyrics if they wish. To give students ideas for their first entries, present the following prompts and give them 5-10 minutes to write:
    This weekend, one thing I did for fun was . . .
    I get really frustrated and mad when . . .
    I have a lot of thoughts inside my head today . . .

    Collect and read journals after one week, making personal rather than corrective comments on their thoughts and ideas. Ask for volunteers to read aloud from their journals and have students give the writer feedback on style and/or content.

    cover

    You can also use Top-Secret Personal Beeswax: A Journal by Junie B. (and Me!) in your classroom! This hilarious companion to the Junie B. Jones series features Junie B.'s own original writings along with drawings, stickers, and lots of blank pages with creative prompts designed to get students drawing and writing about their own top-secret, personal beeswax. Students will love getting to know Junie B. up close in this fun, interactive writing format.

    When Clay Speaks

    When Junie B. copies May's homework and reports she took a pottery class over the weekend, she doesn't know that clay pots can help us learn about a culture. Using library or Internet resources, familiarize students with the clay pots of the Native American people of the Southwest. Discuss with them the pictographs, or painted images, that grace them and how these pictures speak to us and tell stories of culture, family, and community in this desert region.

    Supply each student with a small handful of self-drying clay shaped into a ball. Have them hold the ball in the palm of one hand and use the thumb of the other hand to make an indentation in the center of the ball. Keep turning the ball of clay and pressing down to within a half inch from the bottom. Have students rotate and pinch the sides of the clay ball with thumb inside and fingers outside until the desired bowl shape is achieved. Let dry and have students paint pictures on the bowls that tell a story about young potters who crafted them.


    Printer-Friendly Activitiy Sheets

    For use with #21 Junie B., First Grader: Cheater Pants
    My Very Own Cinquain
    Junie B.'s Time Out

     

    Rosemary B. Stimola, Ph.D., teaches Children’s Literature at Hostos Community College/City University of New York and serves as educational and editorial consultant to publishers of children's books.