Our Ancient Civilizations unit is an integrated Social Studies/Language Arts unit featuring Literature Circles using the Magic Treehouse Series done through a Project Based Learning style where we'll create a "Museum of Ancient History" and lots of instruction on research and informational writing skills!
Literature Circles-
Students will be divided into three heterogeneous teams:
Team Rome reading Magic Treehouse #13- Vacation Under the Volcano (AR 3.3)
Team China reading Magic Treehouse #14- Day of the Dragon King (AR 3.3)
Team Egypt reading Magic Treehouse #3- Mummies in the Morning (AR 2.7)
Students will be given a reading schedule, which they will accomplish during Daily Five time and at home. For those students who aren't able to read the books independently, we'll have audio recordings available.
Each group will have roles that will rotate weekly:
Summarizer- Your job is to prepare a brief summary of today’s reading. Your group discussion will start with your 1-2 minute statement that covers the key points, main highlights, and general idea of today’s reading assignment.
Questioner/Discussion Director: Your job is to develop a list of questions that your group might want to discuss about this part of the book. Don’t worry about the small details; your task is to help people talk over the big ideas in the reading and share their reactions. Usually the best discussion questions come from your own thoughts, feelings, and concerns as you read.
Illustrator: Good readers make pictures in their minds as they read. This is a chance to share some of your own images and visions. Draw some kind of picture related to the reading you have just done. It can be a sketch, cartoon, diagram, flowchart, or stick-figure scene. You can draw a picture of something that happened in your book, or something that the reading reminded you of, or a picture that conveys any idea or feeling you got from the reading. Any kind of drawing or graphic is okay – you can even label things with words if that helps.
Word Wizard: The words a writer chooses are an important ingredient of the author’s craft. Your job is to be on the lookout for a few words that have special meaning in today’s reading selection.
•Jot down puzzling or unfamiliar words while you are reading. Later, look up the definitions in either a dictionary or some other source.
•You may also run across words that stand out somehow in the reading – words that are repeated a lot, used in an unusual way, or are crucial to the meaning of the text. Mark these special words, too, and be ready to share your ideas on their usage to the group.
Note: When discussing vocabulary, you should always refer back to the text in order to examine the word in context.
Literary Luminary: Your job is to locate a few special sections or quotations in the text for your group to talk over. The idea is to help people go back to some especially interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important sections of the reading and think about them more carefully. As you decide which passages or paragraphs are worth going back to, make a note why you picked each one and consider some plans for how they should be shared. You can read passages aloud yourself, ask someone else to read them, or have people read them silently and then discuss. Remember, the purpose is to suggest material for discussion.
Literature Circles-
Students will be divided into three heterogeneous teams:
Team Rome reading Magic Treehouse #13- Vacation Under the Volcano (AR 3.3)
Team China reading Magic Treehouse #14- Day of the Dragon King (AR 3.3)
Team Egypt reading Magic Treehouse #3- Mummies in the Morning (AR 2.7)
Students will be given a reading schedule, which they will accomplish during Daily Five time and at home. For those students who aren't able to read the books independently, we'll have audio recordings available.
Each group will have roles that will rotate weekly:
Summarizer- Your job is to prepare a brief summary of today’s reading. Your group discussion will start with your 1-2 minute statement that covers the key points, main highlights, and general idea of today’s reading assignment.
Questioner/Discussion Director: Your job is to develop a list of questions that your group might want to discuss about this part of the book. Don’t worry about the small details; your task is to help people talk over the big ideas in the reading and share their reactions. Usually the best discussion questions come from your own thoughts, feelings, and concerns as you read.
Illustrator: Good readers make pictures in their minds as they read. This is a chance to share some of your own images and visions. Draw some kind of picture related to the reading you have just done. It can be a sketch, cartoon, diagram, flowchart, or stick-figure scene. You can draw a picture of something that happened in your book, or something that the reading reminded you of, or a picture that conveys any idea or feeling you got from the reading. Any kind of drawing or graphic is okay – you can even label things with words if that helps.
Word Wizard: The words a writer chooses are an important ingredient of the author’s craft. Your job is to be on the lookout for a few words that have special meaning in today’s reading selection.
•Jot down puzzling or unfamiliar words while you are reading. Later, look up the definitions in either a dictionary or some other source.
•You may also run across words that stand out somehow in the reading – words that are repeated a lot, used in an unusual way, or are crucial to the meaning of the text. Mark these special words, too, and be ready to share your ideas on their usage to the group.
Note: When discussing vocabulary, you should always refer back to the text in order to examine the word in context.
Literary Luminary: Your job is to locate a few special sections or quotations in the text for your group to talk over. The idea is to help people go back to some especially interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important sections of the reading and think about them more carefully. As you decide which passages or paragraphs are worth going back to, make a note why you picked each one and consider some plans for how they should be shared. You can read passages aloud yourself, ask someone else to read them, or have people read them silently and then discuss. Remember, the purpose is to suggest material for discussion.
Project Based Learning-
Using the same teams from the Literature Circles, we'll create a "Museum of Ancient History" for younger students and our families to visit.
Each team will assign a "curator" that is responsible for a section of the museum and will be assessed for this section. Others may help and have input, but the responsibility of the section is the curator’s.
You may assign a curator for any of the following areas. Whichever ones are leftover, should be done as a group:
As a group, you'll need to create two to three "artifacts" including a display sign that says what it is and why it's important to your civilization and one hands-on activity for museum guests to experience.
Using the same teams from the Literature Circles, we'll create a "Museum of Ancient History" for younger students and our families to visit.
Each team will assign a "curator" that is responsible for a section of the museum and will be assessed for this section. Others may help and have input, but the responsibility of the section is the curator’s.
You may assign a curator for any of the following areas. Whichever ones are leftover, should be done as a group:
- Geographic Influences
- Daily Life
- Inventions
- Famous People
- Communications
- Understanding of Time/Space
As a group, you'll need to create two to three "artifacts" including a display sign that says what it is and why it's important to your civilization and one hands-on activity for museum guests to experience.