We recently started reading about early English colonies like Roanoke, Jamestown, and Plymouth. Colonists had to have amazing constitutions to survive life in the new settlements, but what has been more amazing to my students (and me) is the trip from England to the new world on the ship.

We did a little extra digging into the voyages on ships like the Mayflower. The Mayflower was a merchant ship and not really intended for voyagers. The 102 passengers mainly stayed in the gun deck or "tween" deck in a space that was about 80' long, 24' wide, and a ceiling height of about 5 1/2'. To give you a little comparison, a school bus is usually 40' long, so the Mayflower is the length of two school buses parked one in front of the other.

In order to visualize the parts of the ship a little better, the students are creating cutaway Mayflower diagrams with 14 main ship parts labeled. We defined the ship parts first and then searched Mayflower diagrams and pictures to draw our own cross-sections of the ship.

I found this SITE and this SITE with reliable definitions for the students, but there were plenty of other online resources. Google images had great results too. I gave the students this Mayflower Ship Parts Handout, and they completed the definitions first. After we compared definitions, students used legal sized white paper (and rulers) to draw, label, and color their diagrams. We did not quite finish before spring break, but I love the way the diagrams look so far. This has been a great activity to enhance my history content as well as work with proportion and measurement.

Caitlin
The-Room-Mom.com

Man's Best Friend

I have a student this year who is on the hunt for all chapter books with a dog. As luck would have it, I happen to teach a few books that have a dog as a central character. Books with dogs are great books to share with your class because it is usually easy to get both boys and girls interested in the story.

The dog and main human character rely on each other and develop a deep friendship, and the human (usually a child about the same age as our students) has to take responsibility for the animal. These themes of companionship, trust, responsibility, and independence can be found in many animal books and are reasons I think kids love to read books with animal characters.

One drawback to the dog books is often an animal dies, so be aware if you have a particularly tender-hearted teacher student in your class who might start crying in front of others at the end of the story. 

Below is a list of dog-centered chapter books that I like to use in the classroom as a read aloud or novel study: 

• Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (click for novel unit)
• A Dog Called Homeless by Sarah Lean
• A Dog Called Kitty by Bill Wallace
• The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford (click for novel unit)
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (click for novel unit)
• Julie of the Wolves series by Jean Craighead George
• Kavik the Wolf Dog by Walt Morey
• Love That Dog by Sharon Creech (click for novel unit)
• My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen (middle school+)
• Ribsy by Beverly Cleary
• Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• Sounder by William H. Armstrong
• Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner (click for novel unit)
• What the Dog Said by Randi Reisfeld
• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

A few favorite activities I use with the dog books I teach could easily be adapted for other novel studies:

One activity I have been using for a long time is to have students write point of view journals as we read a novel. It is an activity that works well for different novels, but it is particularly successful with The Incredible Journey.

Students pick one animal after reading the first few chapters of the book. After we complete each chapter, the students retell the chapter from the point of view of their chosen animal. We share one journal from each animal every day and compare the different versions of the story depending on which animal's journal we hear. Students love comparing and contrasting the scenes in the story based on Luath, Bodger, or Tao's viewpoint. Students also love making the foldable burrito books that they use to write their incredible journals!

Another great assignment to help with citing textual evidence is to have students draw a "map" of a specific character's journey based on details in the text. With the novel, Stone Fox, students draw and label the race course based on clues in the story. There are many novels that involve a journey of some kind, and drawing and labeling the character's route using details from the story is an activity that requires close reading.

Do you read any animal books to your students? Are they successful?

Caitlin

TheRoomMom