Engaging Deeper Thinking

This is a great beginning of the year activity to get to know your class. It gets the students really thinking about books that have been meaningful to them throughout their lives. Listening to students share the books that have impacted them will create classroom community and also allow you to get to know them as readers. You'd be surprised how inspirational of an activity this ends up being when students present their Textual Lineage to the class. This Google Slidedeck has example slides tha

Cinderella is a classic tale that has been told across cultures for hundreds of years. Many students will be familiar with the Disney version that is mostly based on the Charles Perault version. Using Epic and your school or local library you will need to plan ahead to check out some of the recommended Cinderella books. This unit could easily take a week. It is recommended they partner read one book a day while filling out a table that analyzes the common Cinderella events. On the fourth and fif

This is a fun assignment for students learning about the solar system. This allows students to pick a planet to research and then write a postcard pretending to be an astronaut exploring this planet writing to someone back on Earth. They will incorporate facts about the planet with creative details about what that person would be experiencing while on that planet. Links are provided to help students research their chosen planets. Also, a sample is provided. The final product will be handwritten