Behind the Scenes With Cinderella

This lesson, Behind the Scenes With Cinderella, is developed for 3-5 graders to take a deeper look into different Cinderella stories and compare them to eachother based on the story and the background of where the story was written.

This lesson is great to work with because it allows the teacher to work with books of shorter length and great variety. The lesson is used to enhance interest in both the story of Cinderella and in the countries and cultures surrounding the stories where they were written. Cinderella stories have been told all over the world, from Asia and the Middle East to the Americas and Africa, and they have also been told across the years, providing a wide array of Cinderella stories to choose from. This provides a teacher an easy way to integrate language arts with what ever country or culture may be being studied in social studies or geography. You can compare a Native American Cinderella to that of a girl from ancient Korea as just one possibility, with nearly endless possibilities for comparison.

The lesson does provide a link to the following site Cinderella Stories where you can see some of the many versions of Cinderella from around the world.

Just maybe this could be the lesson that fits just perfect for you.

Lesson and image source: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/behind-scenes-with-cinderella-261.html?tab=1#tabs

A Midsummer Night's Dream Activities for Grades 10-11

Here: http://www.classzone.com/novelguides/litcons/midsumm/guide.cfm, you can find a set of activities and research options that would especially get high school girls interested. Ideas such as brainstorming about: romantic attraction, the media's view on beauty, and love's importance to modern marriage are a few of these topics. Boys would probably enjoy the option to perform research on mythical creatures. This and more can be found at the site listed above.

Themes: Love, Magic, Marriage and Mythical Creatures
Grades: 10-11 (one could probably adapt this for 12th as well)

Original Source: Retrieved on February 17, 2010 from "http://www.classzone.com/novelguides/litcons/midsumm/guide.cfm"
Image Credits: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/

Beowulf Activities For 11-12th Graders

Found here, http://www.classzone.com/novelguides/litcons/beowulf/guide.cfm, this site presents a set of activities that may foster interest in the story of Beowulf. From understanding loyalty to creating comic books, there are a handful of discussion and expression opportunities here for the epic story of Beowulf that might be of high interest to high school students (especially boys).


Themes: Good vs. Evil, Epic Tales, Loyalty
Grades: 11-12

Originals Source: Anonymous creator, Retrieved on February 17, 2010 from "http://www.classzone.com/novelguides/litcons/beowulf/guide.cfm"
Image Credits: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/

The Lightning Thief and a God's amount of resources for teachers

Looking for a teacher's guide that has way more information then you can probably ever use? That is exactly what the one time teacher Rick Riordan has put together for teachers in his guide to The Lightning Thief. The guide is 91 pages divided to correspond with lessons for each chapter. It spans all the elements of the curriculum, art, social studies, geography, social studies, and language arts (of course). Topics include discussing gods; the different types of Greek art: sculptures, painting, and pottery, ADHD, and others topics. And that doesn't even mention the using Rick's idea of having an Olympian festival at the end that can incorporate food of the time, or at least similar, and of course physical activities- the Olympian games of racing and javelin throwing, and discuss toss to name a few. It is impossible to not find a lesson that a teacher could not use at some point while reading The Lightning Thief.

Rick Riordan's Teacher's Guide can be found at the following website along with many other teacher resources compiled by Rick.

http://www.rickriordan.com/index.php/books-for-children/a-teachers-guide-to-percy/

Fantasy Island Assignment

This language arts, visual arts, and geography activity could be used for older elementary through high school students. It makes for a great cross-curricular assignment that will get students working together as they engaging in the creation of their own island.

I could see this lesson idea being used as a whole-class project for younger students, and a small group or independent project for older students.

Materials:

* 12” x 18” light blue construction paper for each student
* 8” x 12” sheets of assorted light colored construction paper
* old magazines for clippings
* scissors
* glue sticks
* assorted markers
* black pens

How to Create a Fantasy Island Assignment:

Step 1
Explain to students that they will be creating an imaginary island which they will design according to any theme which appeals to them, one which will, of course, also fulfill the requirements of the assignment. Brainstorm ideas for the island. To get the brainstorming session going, you might suggest some of the following: “Basketball Island,” “Fashion Island,” “Video Game Island,” “CD Island,” and other ideas that represent student interests.

Step 2
Hand out rubrics that you create based on the specific skills you would like to emphasize during this assignment. The rubric will explain in detail what the assignment should look like when it is finished and how many points will be awarded for each correctly executed element of the assignment. Ask each student to decide on an idea and check with you for appropriateness and for suitability to the assignment.

Step 3
Provide each student with a large sheet of light blue construction paper and a smaller sheet of any light colored paper. The smaller paper will be cut into an irregular island shape and glued onto the center of the light blue “ocean.”

Step 4
Ask students to set their island in an actual ocean or sea, which they should write on their paper, and to include at least three geographically appropriate details for that particular location. For example, there may be woods or palm trees; there may be mountains or desert. These should be sketched on the island and named.

Step 5
Instruct students to leave reality behind once they have completed Step #3. Now they may let their imaginations take over, and, incorporating the theme they have come up with, they should design the island to their liking. Using magazine clippings and/or drawings, students will add roads, stores, public buildings, amusement parks, or any other details they wish to their project. Each detail should be labeled, should relate to the theme of their island, and should correctly address the skills on the rubric.


Original Source: "How to Create a Fantasy Island Assignment" by Peggy Epstein. Retreived Februady 2, 2010 from http://www.ehow.com/how_4530810_create-fantasy-island-assignment.html.

Cinderella & the Elements of a Story for Elementary Students

http://learner.org/interactives/story/cinderella.html

This website uses the story of Cinderella to explore story elements like: Setting, Characters, Conflict, Resolution and more. There's an activity to do for each story element, and the majority of text is read aloud as audio automatically.

This website could be used to enhance a Language Arts curriculum. A teacher, media specialist, or computer lab teacher could guide elementary students through the activities. This would also make a great site for children to explore on their own as well.

Harry Potter and Arithmancy Arithmetics

A great example of how to capitalize on the tremendous popularity of fantasy books can be found in the April 2005 issue of Mathematics: Teaching in the Middle School. Betsy McShea, Judith Vogel, and Maureen Yarnevich lay out a lesson in “Harry Potter and the Magic of Mathematics.” The authors focused on using Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because it is a very popular series that almost everyone already knows about, even if they have not read the book. By using a popular story they are able to, as they say, “use examples from the books in the classroom without assigning the text as additional required reading.”

So how do the authors use Harry Potter in their classroom? Actually in a couple different ways. First, they use the money system in Harry Potter to have their students practice conversions. They create problems from the follow excerpt from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone:

“Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.

‘All yours,’ smiled Hagrid…

Hagrid helped harry pile some of into a bag.

‘The gold ones are Galleons,’ he explained. ‘Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it’s easy enough.” (Rowling 1997, p. 75)

They can go onto use Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for teaching “Functions and Linear Modeling,” and finally “Probability.”

The authors lay out a wonderful article that I recommend to any teacher to read that is wanting to enliven their math class with a little fantasy that the students can relate to.

Additionally, this particular journal overall has many good articles from month to month on how to take a new look at teaching mathematics, but this issue in particular includes an interesting use of Shel Silverstein’s poems in mathematics.

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland is about to be on the minds of the public again with the release of Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland to hit theaters this year. This provides teachers an opportunity to create lessons around the excitement generated by this movie.

Alice in Wonderland is perhaps one of the most used fantasy stories in cross curricular studies, so teachers shouldn’t have a problem coming up with lessons. Lewis Carroll’s (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) book has been used in literature, art, social studies, and mathematics (not surprisingly since he himself was a mathematician), to name but a few.

Today we will focus on just one of the ways to use Alice in Wonderland, specifically Social Studies. The Library of Congress has a lesson plan called “Down the Rabbit Hole,” http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/00/rabbit/, which uses the book to focus on American History by relating Alice in Wonderland to immigrant experiences in coming to America. As LOC states, ”When Alice fell down the rabbit hole, she found herself in a world where the rules had changed, her surroundings were unfamiliar, and the inhabitants spoke in strange tongues. Alice's journey is not unlike the experience of an immigrant who relocates to a new country.”

This lesson states it is primarily focused on middle schools grades, but it could be used in high school also, especially with the release of the film targeting their age group also. If you are an educator looking for a very detailed lesson plan this one might not be for you as it focuses on providing the general outline of the lesson, but leaves securing materials up to you. Don’t let this scare you off though, because your two big materials will be your text book and a copy of Alice in Wonderland, which is a work that is in the public domain so retrieving copies of the text is relatively easy. In fact it can be retrieved at Project Gutenberg, Alice in Wonderland http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11. Additional supporting materials will need to be gathered eventually, but the main part of the lesson is just to try to get students to compare Alice’s situation with that of an immigrant coming to America.

With the imminent release of the movie coming I’m am sure this will be just one of several lessons we will try to share with you for Alice in Wonderland.

Source: http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/00/rabbit/

Top 10 YA Fantasy Books from Goodreads Inc.

1.The Wizard Heir
by Cindy Williams Chima


2.The City of Ember
by Jeanne DuPrau


3.Coraline
by Neil Gaiman


4.Ella Enchanted
by Gail Carson Levine


5.Uglies
by Scott Westerfeld


6.Princess Academy
by Shannon Hale


7.The Queen of Attolia
by Megan Whalen Turner


8.Everlost
by Neal Shusterman


9.The Blue Girl
by Charles de Lint


10.Fablehaven
by Brandon Mull

Source: http://www.goodreads.com on 2/3/10

City Generator as a Social Studies Tool

http://citygen.crystalballsoft.com/

This site offers a customizable city generator that creates detailed facts about the population, size, imports and exports, buildings, geographical resources, marketplaces, and nearly 100 professions.

This could become a great, high interest tool for developing medieval era vocabulary.

Upper Elementary, as well as Jr. High and High School students could use this by:
1.Generating their city's stats
2.Comparing stats with their classmates
3.Constructing a visual map that shows all or some major features of their city
4.Answering a written series of questions regarding their cities
5.Presenting their maps to the class, remembering to mention major features

An Example:
Faron

Community Size:Small Town
Population:1,600 Adults
Size:42.65 Acres
Population Density (Adults/Acre):37.52 Adults/Acre
Races:Elf (576); Human (320); Halfling (288); Dwarf (160); Gnome (112); Half Elf (80); Half Orc (48); Other (16)

Gold Piece Limit:800.00
Wealth:64,000.00
Income for Lord(s)/King(s):640.00
Magic Resources:3,200.00

Imports:Horses
Exports:Fish, Stone and Wood
Famous:Pockets, Rituals and Stubby
Infamous:Fish

# of Wards:10
# of Buildings:744
# of Power Centers:3
# of Guilds:1

Gate Area (one of many areas) (only some are listed here)
4.51 Acres; 81 Structures; Inside Walls Admin (B) : 2 B House (B) : 2 Bath (B) : 3 Corral (B) : 1 Hospital (B) : 5 House (B) : 9 Inn (B) : 6 Inn (C) : 5 Religious (B) : 1 Shop : Dairy Sellers (C) : 1 Shop : Furriers (B) : 1 Shop : Haberdashers (C) : 1 Shop : Tailors (B) : 1 Stable (B)

Professions (only some are listed here)
Acrobats & Tumblers : 1 Apprentices : 27 Architects : 1 Artists : 2 Astrologers : 1 Bakers : 4 Barbers : 6 Basket Makers : 9 Bathers : 1 Beggers : 260 Blacksmiths : 1 Bricklayers : 1 Buckle Makers : 1 Butchers : 2 Caravaner : 5 Carpenters : 7 Chandlers : 3 Clergy members : 37 Clothiers & Used : 12 Clothiers, Used : 2 Cobblers : 17 Cooks : 4 Coopers : 4

In short...
This is a vast and perhaps overwhelming tool, but I can see some great potential for educational benefits as well.

Source: http://citygen.crystalballsoft.com/ on 2/3/10