You can do a sequencing activity with this story, determining what the caterpillar ate each day, or you can do a science activity about the life cycle of a caterpillar. You can give the students a picture of a caterpillar with Monday - Sunday written in each part of the caterpillar's body, and the students can either write or draw what the caterpillar ate each day.
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This story can be read in a 5th grade classroom; I would use this to have discussions on sacrifice, character analysis, and theme during the reading. You could also use this to do a compare and contrast between the four siblings, and describe the relationship between the four and how they work together. You can also have the students write about what it means to be a hero and what makes Aslan a hero.
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I loved reading this story. Children would really enjoy it because it is funny, has good advice on manners, and has other characters they are already familiar with. This book would be great to read in a first grade classroom with a number of other books about a "big bad wolf", having the students compare and contrast the wolves and other characters in the stories. They can also have a creative writing activity where they write a story about a "big bad wolf".
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This book would be great to use in a kindergarten or first grade classroom. You could either do a lesson on cause and effect, or sequencing. For cause and effect, you can together make a cause and effect anchor chart and determine which events in the stories are caused or affected by which. You could also make a sequencing anchor chart and have the students put the events in order.
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This novel could be read in a 3-5th grade classroom aloud, or it could be read in 6-8th grade. I would use this story to have comprehension, analysis and theme discussions as reading it aloud in the class. I would have 5th grade students choose one object or person from the story that is a symbolic representation and have them write about it. For 3rd or 4th graders, I would have them choose one of the main characters and create a word web describing that character.
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This book's reading level ranges from K-2; I would read this story aloud in a 1st grade classroom and as I am reading, I would have my students either hold their thumbs up each time they hear a person, place or thing, or write down a few nouns they heard throughout the story and repeat them after reading. Then I would give them a list of nouns and have them decide if each is a person, place or thing. An extension would be to have them to a creative writing activity, giving them a number of nouns to have in a story they create.
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I would read this novel in a fifth grade class room (Reading Level 4.6) and have my students describe each of the main characters and how they are different, and tell how the characters "cross the bridge", finding similarities between the characters and how they work together.
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I would read this story with kindergartners, first or second graders. It would be really awesome to have Novak read it to the whole school, but assuming this would not be easy to do, I would read this story to my class; then, during stations, in the reading center, I would have this book out for students to practice fluency and enthusiasm by reading this story to each other. I would even use this book as a reward for my students to go and read to another class.
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I would use this book in kindergarten or first grade, and one thing you can do that I did in a class is cut out small pictures of each animal in the story, separating your students into groups for an activity. You can also use a paper plate to make an old lady, the plate being her stomach, and cut out pictures of each animal that she eats and gluing it to the plate; you can have your students color it and hang it up.
Another thing you can do is an sequencing activity sheet, cutting out the animals and gluing them to a paper in the order they were eaten.
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This is a great story to do in first or second grade; you can do an activity for labeling the parts of a fish, and coloring the scales. You can also do this in kindergarten and discuss why it is important to share.
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You could use this in a first or second grade classroom and have an anchor chart with character, setting, problem and solution sections for the students to fill out. You could also do a text-to-self activity sheet for the students to do that has at the stop "If I Were a Wild Thing, I Would Look Like This...", then at the bottom "A wild thing I would do: ________"
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You could use this story in a kindergarten, first or second grade classroom and have students construct a "pout pout" fish, and have a creative writing sheet that says "I am a pout pout fish when..." that they would complete. You could also do a graphic organizer that has a "kiss kiss" fish and a "pout pout" face, and under each picture would have "I feel cheery/pouty when..."
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This story is perfect to read in 1st-5th grade, since bullying is an issue in just about every grade. Students can be given a pack of "bully beans" (jelly beans) and if they are bullied, they can eat one and write about it in a journal or on a note card and give it to their teacher or counselor. For the older grades, 4th and 5th, you can even have your class act out a bullying scene in groups and have the rest of the class, the audience, decide what needs to happen or answer questions throughout the group's skit.
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I would use this story in a first or second grade classroom, discussion perspective and points of view. I would have an anchor chart on display and together we would compare and contrast the wolf's perspective and the pigs' perspective.
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With this novel, I would read it aloud as well as assign chapters to read for students in any grade between third or fifth grade. We would throughout the readings have class discussions on character, setting, plot and analysis, as well as have short quizzes when assigned chapters to read to test reading. In a fifth grade class, I would at the end of the reading have my students write an essay discussing when it is okay to write about people and why.
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