Dear Lemony Snicket...

Many of my small groups absolutely love The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. 

 One group is reading the prequels but is quite upset only two of the four have been released. 

 

 I told them this is how I felt growing up waiting for Harry Potter sequels and to deal with it.  (Perhaps not the best teacher response but they need realize not everything in life is handed to them immediately.  Sometimes they have to wait for what they want.)

For one of our must do activities, they were instructed to write a letter to an author, sharing their feelings about the book.

Here are some of the responses to Lemony:

Quite the sassy remark!

I love their passion.

Happy reading!

Chronological Order Sorts!

I'm pleased to announce some new chronological order sorts are available on TpT!  (I now have 120 posted products, all of which have been classroom tested with my own group of fifth graders.)

Since I just finished some new novels with my small groups, I decided to make them chronological order sorts as a quick check for their comprehension.  By placing the events from the novels back into chronological order, they are examining how these events and chapters build upon one another.  (CCSS RL 5.5).  

I have created new sorts for the following novels:

Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero
Rick Riordan's The Red Pyramid
Gennifer Choldenko's Al Capone Does My Shirts
Lemony Snicket's Who Could That Be At This Hour?
Pam Pollack and Meg Beviso's Who Was Steve Jobs?
Suzanne Collin's Mockingjay
Tom Angleberger's The Strange Case of Origami Yoda

These products are available here and great for small groups!

TpT Novel Guide: Who Could That Be at This Hour?

As I previously blogged about, crunch time with my small group novels arrived.  One of the three novels I read for the first time with a group was Lemony Snicket's Who Could That Be at This Hour?, a prequel to The Series of Unfortunate Events and the first of four in his new series All the Wrong Questions.

I enjoyed this book and its illustrations:

I found it to be less predictable than the Series of Unfortunate Events, which is written at a slightly lower DRA level.  This novel is a DRA 50, while his others are at a 44.

My teacher guide, complete with comprehension questions and suggested answers for each chapter, vocabulary ideas for each chapter, homework suggestions and more is available here on TpT!  This 18 page guide has everything you need to do this novel with a group.

Happy reading!