Back to Teacher View
Student View
Illustrated by Shannon Wright
Pine School Pals: The Obstacle Course
Meet the Pine School second-grade class. Today Ben and Zoey have a problem. Find out what happens in The Obstacle Course!
By Laine Falk
From the March / April 2025 Issue
Learning Objective:Students will practice finding the problem and solution in a fiction story.
Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
Implementation
- Small group; whole group; independent reading
Pairings and Text Connections
This comic is part of a series. Students can look at past print issues or go online to read about the Pine School Pals’ other adventures!
Before-Reading Resources
- Text Preview Bookmarks
(5 minutes) Kids can cut out the fiction bookmark and use it to preview the text.
(5 minutes) Kids can cut out the fiction bookmark and use it to preview the text.
Suggested Reading Focus
Reading fluency, performance (30 minutes)
- Have students read the mini graphic novel aloud in small groups. You can assign different students different roles. The characters are all listed on the first page to make this easy.
- After students have practiced with their small groups, they can perform their “play“ for the rest of the class (while reading from the magazine—they don’t have to memorize their parts).
- Then you can discuss the story. What was the problem in the story? What was the solution?
After-Reading Skills Practice
(15 minutes for each activity)
- Problem and Solution: This activity helps students reflect on the structure of the comic they have just read.
- Video: Show students the video “What’s in a Comic?” to help them understand features of comics, like speech bubbles, thought bubbles, and more.
Text-to-Speech