Illustration introducing main characters of comic, Jack, Zoey, Malik & Ms. Perez
Shannon Wright
Mini Graphic Novel,

Pine School Pals: The Cleanup Clash

Meet the Pine School second-grade class. Today Jack and Zoey have a problem. Find out what happens in The Cleanup Clash!

By Lindsey Owen
From the September 2024 Issue

Children will practice finding the problem and solution in a fiction story.

Lexile® measure: 540L
Featured Skill: Use Visuals, Main Idea,
Topic: Social-emotional learning,
Common Core Standards
  • RL.2.1 Key details RL.2.3 Describe how characters respond to events RL.2.5 Story structure RL.2.7 Use information from illustrations to understand characters, setting, and plot RL.2.10 Read grade-2-appropriate stories SL.2 Participate in conversations about grade-2 texts
TEKS Standards
  • Health
    (3) Mental health and wellness—social and emotional health. The student identifies and applies strategies to develop socio-emotional health, self-regulation, and healthy relationships. The student is expected to: (A) communicate needs, wants, and emotions in healthy ways; (F) describe and demonstrate respectful ways to communicate with family members, peers, teachers, and others; (G) identify the feelings and perspectives of others by interpreting their verbal and nonverbal cues (4) Mental health and wellness—developing a healthy self-concept. The student develops the capacity for self-assessment and evaluation, goal setting, and decision making in order to develop a healthy self-concept. The student is expected to: (A) discuss ways to be kind to self and others

Magazine View
See Student View

Pine School Pals:
The Cleanup Clash

By Lindsey Owens

video (1)
Slideshows (1)
Activities (6)
Skills Activities
Answer Key (1)
video (1)
Slideshows (1)
Activities (6) Download All Quizzes and Activities
Skills Activities
Answer Key (1)

About the Story

Social and Life Skills

Resolving conflicts constructively

Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
Download the Lesson Plan

Implementation

Small group; whole group; independent reading

Pairings and Text Connections

  • In this issue, these texts all connect to the helper theme. 

“Bear Cub Rescue,” p. 6

“The Bird and the Zebra,” p. 14

“Go, Animal Team!” p. 20

“Pine School Pals: The Cleanup Clash,” p. 21

Before-Reading Resources

  • Text Preview Bookmarks 

(10 minutes) Kids can cut out the fiction bookmark and use it to preview the text.

Suggested Reading Focus

Problem/solution, text navigation (30 minutes)

  • Read the first page with your students. You can assign different students different roles if you want to read this mini graphic novel aloud like a short play! The characters are all called out on the first page.

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. 
  • What Is the Setting?: Students can write about where the story takes place and draw a picture. 
  • Story Map: Students can write about events in the story. 
  • Character Traits: Students can identify the character traits of a character in the story. Be sure to check out our Skill Power video about identifying character traits!

After-Reading Text Comparisons

(15 minutes for each activity)

  • Helper Chart: Students can compare and contrast all of the helper-themed texts with this chart.

Text-to-Speech