Students are taken out of their comfort zone to experience a year in the country. Additional writing tasks offer great options for extra work. List things that are different between Mary Alice's world and the present. Translate two different expressions Mary Alice uses to describe her grandmother. Put events from the story in order as they happened with Mary Alice and Grandma on Halloween. Write a letter to Mary Alice's mother in her own words in an attempt to change her opinion of the grandmother. Students identify who the antagonist of the story is and defend their opinion. Create a travel brochure for Chicago, Illinois. Aligned to your State Standards, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: A Year Down Yonder is a Newbery Medal-winning story about a young girl who must spend a year living with her grandmother in the country. Mary Alice spent her childhood summers staying with her grandmother in a small country-town in Illinois. These summers were packed with enough surprises and drama to fill the double bill of any picture show. Now, Mary Alice is fifteen and must spend a whole year with her grandmother, away from her Chicago home. Over the course of the year, Mary Alice experiences a hurricane, fox-hunting by night, a late-night raid of a pecan tree and pumpkin patch, a huge snake in the attic, and a community rife with hardship and social pretenses. A Year Down Yonder is a hilariously funny and heart-warming novel.

Find the power to stand up for yourself and what you believe in. Students will become highly-engaged in the activities presented in this resource. Make predictions about what will happen in the following chapters based on what you know of the characters so far. Describe how Palmer felt about pigeons based on his reactions from the first two Pigeon Days. Answer multiple choice questions about Palmer's experience with his friends. Retell Palmer's reasons for not wanting to be a wringer as he tells them to Dorothy. Create a poem that describes Palmer's actions throughout the story. Describe three important settings from the novel and discuss some of the important plot events that happened at each of them. Aligned to your State Standards, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: Wringer teaches students the importance of self confidence and standing up against bullying. Palmer LaRue dreads the day he will turn ten years old. When he was just four years old, he witnessed his first Pigeon Day—a yearly celebration that takes place during Family Fest in the small town of Waymer. On this day, five thousand pigeons are shot. Traumatized by what he saw, Palmer forever feared the day he would turn ten and become a wringer. A wringer is someone who wrings the neck of wounded pigeons. Nearing his tenth birthday, Palmer falls in with a group of bullies who hate pigeons more than anything. At first, Palmer is proud of his new friendship, but that all changes when he befriends a pigeon. Wringer highlights Palmer’s struggle between what his friends think and what he feels is right.

A thrilling adventure of a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness to learn the basic needs for survival. Help students think deeper about the novel and offer a great jumping off point for class discussion. Demonstrate prior knowledge of the story's setting, including animals and terrain Brian may come across. Answer true or false questions about the turtle and its eggs that Brian encountered. Describe Brian's appearance as he saw himself in the lake. Finish sentences with vocabulary words from the story. Students imaging being Brian and come up with their own survival plan. Complete a chart detailing the events Brian survives, what his reactions were, and what he learned from them. Aligned to your State Standards, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: Hatchet is a Newbery Honor winning story about a boy surviving a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness. Miles off course, Brian must wait out the search for him while surviving in the harsh environment. With nothing but a hatchet his mother gave him, Brian soon discovers his greatest tool for survival is himself. A bear, porcupine, moose and even tornado threaten to hinder Brian’s attempt at survival; however, he manages to make a shelter for himself, weapons, and finally a fire. With these tools, Brian must hunt and gather food and water in order to stay alive while he waits for a rescue plane to find him.

Travel to a strange land and find out what it's like to be a piece in a chess game. A variety of question styles ensure students stay engaged with the novel and better enjoy the story. Compare Alice's movements in the mirror world to that of a pawn in the game of chess. Answer a series of multiple choice questions to show comprehension of Alice and the Queen's interaction. Using details gathered throughout the novel, draw a map of the looking-glass world. Become familiar with synonyms by finding words that mean the same as the underlined words found in the text. Compare the real world to the looking-glass world by describing events and actions that take place in both. Aligned to your State Standards and written to Bloom's Taxonomy, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: Through the Looking-Glass is a fantastical story about a mirrored world beyond the reflective glass. The story follows Alice six months after her adventures in Wonderland. This time, Alice climbs through the mirror on top of her mantelpiece and finds herself in an alternate world from her own. Alice soon becomes part of a large-scale chess game, where she meets strange and interesting characters through her journey. Traveling the land, Alice meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee, learns of the Walrus and the Carpenter, runs into the Red and White Kings and Queens before being crowned Queen herself. Through the Looking-Glass is a strange tale of chess, strategy, and imagination. A great companion to the Disney movie, Alice Through the Looking Glass with Johnny Depp.

A dystopian future set underground brings to light the struggles that humanity will endure in order to survive. The variety of engaging activities can be easily broken up over several weeks to coordinate with assigned reading. Describe in detail the city of Ember, from how it looks to how it operates. Analyze the chapter titles and dissect what they could allude to. Explain what we as readers discover about Ember when Doon visits the library. Answer comprehension questions about events in the book surrounding Doon’s investigation in the tunnels. Create your own list of instructions that have been damaged and have a partner decipher what they are for. Plot the important moments or points of action from the story in a Pipeline Timeline graphic organizer. Aligned to your State Standards and written to Bloom's Taxonomy, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: The City of Ember tells the tale of a society living underground for hundreds of years and the two kids who must bring them into the light. Hundreds of years earlier, a group of people descended underground in hopes to save the human race from extinction. They had enough supplies and power to last them for over 200 years, at which point, instructions on how to return to the surface would be revealed. The only problem is, no one knows these instructions exist, and when they are revealed, they are destroyed. It’s up to Lina and Doon to decipher the few clues they have, locate the way out, and get this news back to their people. But it’s not that easy. In their attempts to find the way out, Lina and Doon stumble on a conspiracy that involves the Mayor and city guards. As such, they are now being hunted as fugitives. Their nearly impossible task just got harder. Now they must race against the clock to escape from Ember with no knowledge of where they are going, and how they can get back to save everyone else.

Help find a stolen painting while solving clues that lead to a hidden message. The included answer key is easy to use, making this resource the perfect comprehensive tool for any novel study. Describe a series of coincidences that occur in the novel. Infer what Petra's father may be hiding based on his actions, and what you would do in the character's shoes. Number the events that occur in Ms. Hussey's class in the order that they happen in the chapter. Predict what Calder will do once he starts questioning Mrs. Sharpe's innocence. Take the book's theme of ancestry into the real world by writing a short fictional story about ancestors interacting with historical figures. Name and describe the key locations in the book and detail how the setting impacted the plot. Aligned to your State Standards, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: Chasing Vermeer is an action-packed story filled with mystery, danger and coincidences. Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee live on the same street, but they may as well be strangers. When a series of odd events take place, the two take notice and begin questioning the signs around them. A strange assignment from their teacher encourages them to look deeper into the works of Johannes Vermeer. When one of Vermeer's paintings is stolen, the pair team up in the hopes of solving the mystery behind the art theft. A series of coincidences lead the pair down a rabbit hole of clues that eventually lead them to solving two seemingly unrelated mysteries. Chasing Vermeer encourages the reader to follow along with the mystery to help solve a message hidden within its pages.

Discover the power behind the friendship of a boy and his dog. The easy-to-use format allows for lots of variety in activities to go along with the book. Enter the mind of Travis as he explains his feelings after shooting the deer. Identify statements about the novel as true or false. Describe how Travis' attitudes change towards certain characters from the story. Predict what will become of Old Yeller based on events from previous chapters. Conduct a study on women settlers and describe how you would feel if put in their position. Categorize the different dangers Travis faces throughout the novel on a graphic organizer. Aligned to your State Standards, additional crossword, word search, comprehension quiz and answer key are also included. About the Novel: Old Yeller tells the story of a boy, his dog, and the events that lead to their unlikely friendship. Travis Coates has no need for a dog, regardless of what his father tells him. Instead, he wants a horse. Travis’ father promises to bring one home for him if he is able to step up and take care of the farm while his father is away. The 14-year-old takes this newfound responsibility to heart and sets out to prove that he deserves the title of “man of the house”. A short time after Travis’ father leaves the farm, a stray dog wanders onto their property. The Coates family name him “Old Yeller” in part because of his filthy yellow fur. Travis wants no part of this nuisance dog. He comes to change his mind when Old Yeller saves Travis’ younger brother from a bear. From then on, Travis and Old Yeller become inseparable, leading to Old Yeller helping Travis keep up his duties on the farm. The story progresses in this manner until one task threatens the health of them both.