Please just...don't.

Clearly, I love books.  I'm an avid fan of movies too, but I get frustrated when the films don't do the movies justice.  The Hunger Games and Catching Fire films were close, some of the Harry Potter films were spot-on and well, we don't need to talk about what happened with the Lightning Thief. 

So when I heard that a film adaptation of The Giver was going to be released this upcoming August, I winced.  I don't have high hopes for this as a film adaptation.

I read the novel myself in elementary school and again as a junior in high school, clearly with different levels of understanding.  I have read this novel with many different small groups, but only if they're mature enough to handle the content...specifically the part with the twins.  That's rough, especially when I had a set of twins in the same small group.  I did not enjoy the tears at that discussion.

So I'm hesitant about this movie...

Then I saw that Taylor Swift was cast in the film.  I'm love her as a musical artist but as Rosemary...I'm not so sure.  At least Meryl Streep has a large role.

I just don't want to see another great book ruined by a sub par movie.  So please, movie industry, don't ruin this classic.

More sorts!

I'm pleased to announce that two more centers have joined my classroom and TpT store!

Both are chronological order sorts, one based on Lois Lowry's The Giver and the other based on our current read aloud, Rick Riordian's The Lightning Thief.  My students have a lot of fun with these challenging centers and yours can too!

Answer keys are included and I recommend laminating the centers for durability.  As a spoiler alert, the centers do include events that happen at the end of the novels, so I'd use this as a comprehension activity when they're done reading the book.  Grab yours now!

Theme Work

This week we reviewed theme in small groups.  I gave my students a paragraph stem (read previous post here) and they independently wrote their responses on post-its.

From there, they combined their responses to make a group response (above).

These became my new bulletin board:

A nifty fourth grade teacher helped me come up with the witty name:

I also added a picture of our anchor chart and put cut outs of our novels to provide others with the necessary back ground knowledge (you know, of what books we read!)

I think they did a great job at picking out themes from their various novels.  Our next challenge will be finding the quotes that support their answers and adding more details!

new stations

New stations are posted on TpT!

The first one is a survival sort. 

I created this one to go along with multiple novels that have survival as a theme.  I created this to go along with Lois Lowry's The Giver and Number the Stars; Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay novels as well as Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, Brian's Winter, Brian's Return, The River and Brian's Return. Students work together to sort descriptions into various categories: emotions, shelter, dangers, etc.  My students love playing this center and as an extension, coming up with new cards to add to our sort.  I love when they are invested in our activities.

The second one is responses to literature for Lois Lowry's Gossamer.

In this station, students draw from over 20 different response to literature cards based on the novel.  Students will respond to the literature, then discuss their answers with their partner or small group.

This supports the CCSS RL 5.1 (quoting accurately) and W 5.9a (response to literature) standards.

Centers one and two are available NOW!

I'm currently working on the next two, which should be available by Sunday.

The third station is based on the Harry Potter novels.  

Students will have to sort descriptions into the characters that are being described.  The center includes descriptions for all the novels and has an "I don't know this yet" section so students can use this sort for any of the seven novels.

This epic sort comes in at thirty five pages and is quite the steal!

The fourth station is also based on Harry Potter, but has students sort descriptions for the houses of Hogwarts.  

Enjoy!

All of these stations are available on my TpT store.  Again, the first two are up now and the second two will be available by Sunday night :)

 If you purchase the products, thank you!  Please consider rating them as well :)

Surprise project!

My students are nearing the completion of their first novels in small groups and I love how much they're loving the books.   Between my 12 small groups, they're reading Hatchet, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the Bad Beginning, The Giver, Number the Stars, Gossamer, and Hunger Games.  

One of my students decided to make a foldable today for her novel Number the Stars:

Inside, she worked on describing the main characters:

I love that she took the initiative to make her own foldable and wanted to share it with me :)

New product: novel study for the Giver

I first read the Giver in elementary school, then again as a junior in high school.  I enjoyed it in elementary school but my teacher didn't necessarily have the necessary discussions with our group.  Back in that time, it was simply enough to hand students a book and give them a test at the end.  There were no discussions.  

I think the lack of discussions does a disservice to students.

Obviously I wouldn't have the same discussion with fifth graders and I would with high school students, but that doesn't mean elementary students can't handle this book in a very structured, scaffolded setting.

I've made my teacher notes available here.

Hope your students enjoy this book as much as mine do!  I've used it both as a whole class read aloud and in small groups.