Charlotte's Web by: E.B. White (Chapter Science Fiction)

When Mr. Arable's sow gave birth to a liter of piglets, he comes to find that there was a runt in the liter.  He decided that he wanted to kill the runt, but his daughter Fern begs him to let it live.  Mr. Arable gave the piglet to Fern as a pet and she named it Wilbur.  Although he was a good little piglet, he was very curious and always got in to everything.  Fern was able to keep Wilbur for a few weeks, and then Mr. Arable decided to give it to her uncle Homer Zuckerman.  Fern visits Wilbur as much as she can, but he is still very lonely living in Zuckerman's barn.  One night, a grey spider amed Charlotte came over to Wilbur and told him that she wanted to be his friend.  All of a sudden, one of the sheep came over to Wilbur and told him that he was going to be killed and eaten at Christmas.  The only thing Wilbur thought he could do was turn to Charlotte for help.  Being that Charlotte wasn't able to talk to Zuckerman, she decided to weave certain words on her web that made Wilbur look like an excellent pig.  Some of these words include terrific, radiant, and humble).  Because of Charlotte's hard work, Wilbur not only gets to live, but him and Charlotte were taken to the county fair and won a prize.  While they are at the fair, Charlotte ended up dying and Wilbur took home her sac of eggs that she laid before she died.  Most of the spiders left the barn, but three of them stayed and became friends with Wilbur.  However, Wilbur will always miss Charlotte.

This is a great book to use in the classroom because it will have the students recognize the importance of friendship.  Friendship and loyalty are something that is very important in life, and this story depicts what it means to be a good friend.  As an activity I would have the students write ten qualities a "good" friend would have, and then talk about who their best friend is and why.  I would also have them characterize Charlotte and Wilbur and name a few characteristics and actions of each that makes them a good friend.  

Kai's Journey to Gold Mountain by: Katrina Currier (Historical Fiction)

This is an emotional story about a 12 year old boy, Wong Kai Chong, who was forced to leave his home in China and travel to Gold Mountain, America, to live with his father.  He had to leave his mother behind in China in order to move to America to be with his father.  In 1934, Chinese immigrants were not welcome in America, and when Kai arrived in California, he was forced to stay on Angel Island.  Angel Island was were they kept the Chinese immigrants and threatened to send them back to China.  The living conditions were horrible, and they had to be intensely interrogated in order to be set free in America.  After his long interrogation, Kai was congratulated and allowed to be released to his father in America.

I decided to use a short Powerpoint presentation for my third technology.  I think that all students should be very familiar with Powerpoint being that it is something that they will tend to use in the years ahead.  I decided to have the students pick out the setting, characters, problem, solution, and climax as the topics for their slides.  This will help the students recognize those main points of a story. (The link to the powerpoint on google docs is below.)

https://docs.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B91mc_HoWp3nYTNiM2RiMjQtZmQ4Ny00OWVkLTk5ZmEtYWRmZWFjY2EwMDFm&hl=en

Babe by: Dick King-Smith (Chapter Science Fiction)

Babe is a pig who lives at Hogget Farm, where he will be raised by Farmer Hoggett.  Once Babe arrives at the farm, he tries to be friends with all of the other animals that are on the farm.  Some of these animals include sheep dogs, sheep, and ducks.  Not only does he become friends with these animals, but he also learns as much as he can about all of them.  One of the main sheep dogs, Fly, decided to take Babe in and help him pursue his talent of sheepherding.  Babe became so good in sheepherding  that Farmer Hoggett began to enter Babe into herding competitions.  Although Babe was very talented, he felt lost in the farm because he called Fly, a sheepdog, his mother and was much different than the rest of the animals on the farm.  He eventually overcame his feelings of not belonging and was accepted by all of the animals and Farmer Hoggett.  He was a special little pig!

I would use this story in the classroom to teach them that not everyone is the same, and that you have to accept everyone for who they are no matter what.  I would have them reflect on a time when they felt like they didn't belong, and if the other people made them feel welcome or if they left them out.  This would also be a good opportunity to show a movie and have them compare the book to the movie Babe.  There are always some differences between the book and the movie, so this would be a great time to demonstrate that to the students.

Night of the Twisters by: Ivy Ruckman (Chapter Realistic Fiction)

Night of the Twisters takes place in Blainsworth, Nebraska where Dan Hatch lives with his stepfather Jack, mother Laura, and half-brother Ryan.  Dan is always trying to impress his stepfather and tries to show him how responsible he is.  Dan has always been interested in art and becoming an artist, but Jack has always tried to force sports on Dan.  The book starts off with  Bob Iverson, a storm chaser, arriving in Blainsworth tracking a massive storm that is about to hit the town.  One day, Jack comes home to watch television, when he is interrupted by a severe weather warning announcement about a tornado that is approximately 14 miles way from Blainsworth.  Once Jack leaves the house, Dan, his best friend Arthur and his baby brother Ryan are left alone in the house.  They immediately run to the basement for shelter and listen to the horrible sounds of the tornado coming ahead.  The story continues with Dan and Arthur taking control and leaving the house to go find their families.  Dan's mother and Aunt Jenny, are stuck inside a nearby diner the entire time this is going on.  Dan and Arthur finally find Jack under a pile of power lines, next to his turned over truck.  Dan quickly runs to his step father and pulls him out from under the power lines, hoping this would show Jack how reliable and responsible Dan really is.  Jack only replies with a thank you and rushes all of them to go save Dan's grandmother, Bess, on her farm.  After they save the grandmother, Jack, Dan, Arthur, Ryan, and Ryan's sister Stacey leave the emergency shelter that they brought the grandmother to to go find Laura.  Just as Jack and all of them pulled into the driveway, Jenny, Bob, and Laura pull up at the same time and all of the families are reunited.  Just as they were reuniting, the tornado begins to reach down and they all make a run for it and hide under the overpass.  The tornado nearly sucks Dan in, but he gets to the overpass as well.  Finally when the tornado ended, they all came out from under the overpass and Dan tells everyone that he is dating Arthur's sister, Stacey.

I would use this story as a way to have the students feel the affects of a natural disaster, such as a tornado.  Being that this story is based off of the 1980 series of tornadoes in a Nebraska town, I would give them a background of those tornadoes before I read the book so they can compare the real life disaster to the fictional book outlook on the tornado.  They can make a chart to keep track of the order of the events that happened in the book.  They can also make a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the 1980 tornadoes and the tornado in the story.       

Snakes by: Jeff Corwin (Non Fiction)

This is a descriptive non fiction book all about snakes.  Jeff Corwin first talks about the types of places that snakes live in such as deserts, jungles, forests, etc.  Pythons are the longest snakes, and thread snakes are the shortest.  He describes what venom is, and how some snakes are venomous and others aren't.  Snakes are reptiles, which means that they are also cold blooded.  Their temperature changes as the temperature around them changes.  An example of this is when snakes lay out in the sun to warm up, and this is called basking.  One of the most amazing things about snakes is that they give birth to their babies in different ways.  Some snakes lay eggs like birds, and others give live birth.  When snakes grow, their body gets too big for their skin.  To remedy this, the snake sheds off their skin.  The rest of the book talks about ten different types of snakes that are the most interesting and popular.  Some of these snakes include the black mamba, rattlesnake, sea snake, king cobra, and a garter snake.

I would have this book on my bookshelf in the classroom for my students to use for independent reading.  Students begin to read non fiction when they are in third grade and snakes are a hot topic for children, especially at that age.  I like how this book is organized and has real photographs of actual snakes.        

Biography of Thomas Edison by: Jan Adkins (Chapter Non Fiction)

This biography was a chapter book all about Thomas Edison and his many inventions.  The book starts off by introducing the Edison family and the birth of Thomas Edison on February 11, 1847.  His middle name was Alva, so they called him 'Al' for short. He was known to always be so curious about the world, and always got into trouble.  At 10 years old he discovered science and his mother gave him a book filled with experiments; Thomas finished every one.  He always had claimed that his mother was the making of him, and his driving force.  In 1854, Thomas' family moved to Port Huron, Michigan from Milan, Ohio.  When they arrived there, Edison decided to quit school to become a candy butcher and newsboy. In 1862, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War had occurred, and Thomas Edison paid a telegrapher to send a bulletin about the battle along the rail line so people would be eager to buy the newspapers.  This was when Edison began to learn telegraphy.  One of Edison's first hard works was the automatic vote counter that involved a complex mixture of electrical principles and mechanics.  After getting married in 1871, Edison invented the carbon button microphone which made the telephone a practical instrument in 1877.  Only a few years later in 1878, he invented the phonograph which was his favorite invention that he had ever made.  The success of telegraphy made Edison wonder if there were other uses for electricity, such as making light.  In 1879, Edison's invention was demonstrated to the press when he showed them the first practical electric light bulb.  One of Edison's longest projects started in 1891 and lasted for 10 years.  The purpose of this project was to separate iron ore electromagnetically.  In 1894, the first Edison kinetograph parlor opened up in New York City, and in 1910 Edison demonstrated the Kinetophone's moving pictures with sounds.  Thomas Edisond died in 1931, but he will always be remembered as the man with all the amazing inventions. 

I would use this in the classroom to introduce Thomas Edison in a way that the students will get a full range of details.  This book is also good because it includes a lot of different pictures of his inventions, as well as vocabulary words defined at the bottom of the page that are used in the book.  I also like the fact that they have a time line of Thomas Edison's life at the end of the book so that the students can see a short overview of everything that they just read.  I think a great activity for this book is to make their own time line of Edison's life to make sure that they comprehended what they have read.  Another activity can be to have the students try and come up with their own small invention to see how creative they can be. 

When Jessie Came Across the Sea by: Amy Hest (Historical Fiction)

A young girl named Jessie lived with her Grandmother in a poor neighborhood in Eastern Europe.  Her parents had died when she was just a baby, and she had lived with her Grandmother ever since.  They were very close and the Grandma taught Jessie how to sew every night.  Jessie's most prized possession was her mother's wedding ring that she kept in a tiny silver box.  One day, the Rabbi of the town told everyone that he was going to America to stay with his brother, but his brother ended up dieing the night before.  He decided to give his ticket to someone in the town that he thought deserved it.  The next day he chose Jessie to leave for America.  Jessie and her Grandmother were very sad to leave each other, but if the Rabbi said it was best, then they knew it was best. Jessie set out in the pouring rain for America to stay with the Rabbi's brother's widow, Kay.  As they were on the ship, Jessie was very depressed knowing that her Grandmother wasn't coming with her.  Jessie sewed for many people on the boat who needed the help.  One boy who she sewed for was named Lou, she really liked him.  When they arrived to Ellis Island, Jessie had to fill out tons of paperwork and didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Lou.  Kay was there to pick her up from Ellis Island and showed her around the city everyday so that Jessie would become familiar with it.  Jessie worked at Kay's parlor and made her a lot of business.  Kay gave Jessie 3 coins everyday, and Jessie saved all of them.  Jessie kept in touch with her Grandmother by writing her letters, but one day when she was 16 years old, she sent her Grandma a letter telling her that she saved enough money to buy her a ticket to come to America.  Her Grandmother wrote back telling her thank you and that she couldn't wait to be with her in America.  One day as Jessie was walking down fifth avenue, she happened to see Lou from the ship!  After spending a lot of time together, Lou proposed to Jessie.  When Jessie picked up her Grandmother from Ellis Island in the pouring rain, she handed Jessie that wedding ring in the silver box being that she was getting married to Lou.

This is a great story to introduce immigration and the affects of it.  Ellis Island was an extremely important place at this point in time, and it is important for the students to understand just how important it was.  I would use this book to show the students how emotional immigration was for everyone involved.  As an activity I would use a book pass.  I would have the children read a few more books about immigration and Ellis Island, and then fill out a chart for that book pass to learn the most they can about this topic.