Mayor Sweet Tart Runs This Town

Civics

Show Video (10 minutes)

• For the election, we included a special video about voting: “Time to Vote!” We are including this video in the resources for this Mini Read as well as in this month’s debate.
• The video teaches kids what voting is; in the case of the video, voting for president. It gives great background knowledge that will help them understand what they read about the cat mayor!
• After watching, tell kids they learned about voting for president. Now they are going to read about voting for a different kind of leader.

Preview Vocabulary (3-15 minutes)

• Play the online vocabulary slideshow. This issue’s featured words are mayor, elect, and voted.

Introduce Preview the Nonfiction Text Features/Visuals (5-10 minutes)

• Preview the nonfiction text features. First, focus on the big photo. Ask kids to share what they notice about the cat.
• Can they find the caption pointing to the big photo of the cat? A caption is a word or group of words that give information about the photo. What does the caption say? (A cat like this one is the mayor of a town!)
• Now ask them to look at the art. What colors are in it? Why do kids think those colors were chosen? (red, white, and blue; they’re colors you see in elections, and Sweet Tart won an election.)

Introduce Nosey (3 minutes)

• Point out our doggie character Nosey at the bottom of page 3. Ask someone to read her voice bubble.
• Explain that Nosey pops up throughout Storyworks 2. Not only does she have a long nose to sniff out facts, but she’s also nosy! She’s curious and wants to know about everything.

• You can read this short article aloud together as a class, in small groups, or individually.
• Point out the context clue that helps define the bold word mayor. After the word, you can find the sentence “A mayor is a leader of a town or city.”

ELA Focus: Quiz (10 minutes)

• Pass out the quiz (available in your Resources tab) for a quick comprehension check.

ELA Focus: Key Details (20 minutes)

• It’s time to help Nosey fill out her Fact File! Print out Nosey’s Fact File from the Resources section of our website. Kids can find facts from the article.
• The fact boxes are each scaffolded to help kids know what to write.
• Kids can share their facts with a partner, the other students at their tables, or the class.

Enrich the Learning: Paired Text Opportunity (time amount varies)

• Vocabulary words are repeated throughout Storyworks 2 to give kids practice with new words in different contexts.
• This article pairs with the Debate on pages 4-5. The word vote is in both articles, just in time for Election 2020!
• Your students can vote in the Scholastic Student Vote.