Call It Courage - Literature Kit Gr. 7-8


Book Description

Expose your students to face their fears and overcome obstacles. Encourage them to find themselves and grow into the person they're meant to be. Make teaching a breeze with ready-made activities and prompts to stimulate student comprehension. Identify statements about life in Mafatu's village as true or false. Find the synonyms to key vocabulary words found in the novel. Imagine how Mafatu's life would be different had his mother been alive. Predict whether Mafatu will survive on the island and return to his village a new man. Explain what Mafatu believed brought him to safety. Create a board game, using a map of the island as a base. Create a set of rules and cards with questions, then play the game in small groups. 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: Call It Courage is a Newbery Medal-winning story about a boy who tries to overcome his fear of the sea by facing it. Set in the Pacific Islands, the story follows Mafatu, the son of the chief of Hikueru Island. After watching his mother die, Mafatu develops a fear of the sea, which brings his father shame. In order to no longer be seen as a coward among his tribe, Mafatu takes a canoe out into the ocean. He ends up lost and deserted on an island, forced to fend for himself. During his encounters on the island, Mafatu slowly faces and overcomes his fears, eventually returning home a new man.







Call It Courage


Book Description

For use in schools and libraries only. Relates how Mafatu, a young Polynesian boy whose name means Stout Heart, overcomes his terrible fear of the sea and proves his courage to himself and his people.







The Cay - Literature Kit Gr. 7-8


Book Description

See how the basic need for survival can break down barriers in this gripping story of overcoming prejudices. Challenge students to think deeply about the themes presented in this story. Imagine the hindrances experienced by those with a disability, and in what ways they are able to overcome them. Identify different statements from the novel as proof Timothy and Philip will be rescued or they will perish. Complete sentences from the book with their missing vocabulary words. Students share a time when they overcame a fear to accomplish a task. Using the author's descriptive language, describe the storm that hits the little island. Using the description Timothy provides to Phillip, research the tea bird and draw a picture of it along with a fact sheet. 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 Cay is a story about a man and a boy who get stranded on an island and struggle to survive with each other. 11-year-old Phillip Enright and his mother board a ship to Virginia in the hopes of escaping the German submarines that are surrounding the area around Curaçao. Along the way, the ship gets torpedoed by one such submarine. Phillip is blinded and stranded out to sea with an old African American man named Timothy and a cat named Stew Cat. The group find themselves on a tiny island, where they survive by fishing and collecting rain water. During their time, Timothy and Phillip struggle to work together, partly due to Phillip's racial prejudices. In the end, the two must learn to work together in the hopes of survival and eventual rescue.




Macbeth - Literature Kit Gr. 9-12


Book Description

Enter a world filled with witches, prophecies, ambition and betrayal. Fresh and practical, our resource includes assessment rubric and writing prompts to inspire student comprehension. Speculate the advantages and disadvantages to knowing the future in advance. Put the events from the play in the order that they happen as Macbeth contemplates killing the King. Students write their own scene in which Macduff confronts Macbeth directly with his suspicions about the murder of the king. Understand the meaning of key vocabulary words by using them in a sentence. Explain what is Macbeth's greatest worry, now that he is King. Students write an Epilogue where Hecate meets up with the Weird Sisters to discuss the events that ended the play. 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: Macbeth is the classic tale of a husband and wife's ambition and their eventual downfall. On their way home from a battle, Macbeth and Banquo are told of their destiny by three witches. Banquo is told he will father a line of kings, while Macbeth is told he will be crowned King. After informing his wife of the witches' prophecy, Lady Macbeth helps to put events into motion that will put Macbeth on the throne. While trying to keep their fate intact, the pair are met with many challenges that all seem to hold true to the witches' prophecy. Macbeth is thrown into a series of murderous plots, while his wife's ambition pulls her over the edge. Murder, greed, and the supernatural propel the story forward to an exciting conclusion.




Fantastic Mr Fox - Literature Kit Gr. 3-4


Book Description

Demonstrate the power of determination with this tale about a clever Fox who outsmarts the surrounding farmers to feed his family. Our consistent vocabulary, comprehension and short-answer format makes this resource easy to use. Written in such a way so educators can choose to use a small part as supplemental material with their existing unit. Introduce students to grade-level words they will come across during their reading. Test comprehension by answering true or false questions about the farmers. Find a quote in the novel that demonstrates foreshadowing. Become a news reporter and come up with 10 questions to ask the farmers about why they dig up the ground. Complete a character sketch of Mr Fox by identifying what he thinks, hears and loves. 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: Fantastic Mr Fox is the classic story by Roald Dahl of a fox who outsmarts a few farmers to steal food from them. Mr Fox lives underground with his wife and children. At night, Mr Fox visits his neighboring farmers and robs them of their livestock. The farmers retaliate by waiting for Mr Fox by his hole, ready to ambush him when he leaves. When that fails, the farmers then try to dig up Mr Fox's home. When that fails, they decide to starve out the Fox family. Mr Fox then comes up with a plan to get food. He gets the help of his friend Badger, and the pair dig their way to the farmers' food. Their success leads to Mr Fox creating an underground neighborhood where all the animals can all live together in safety.




Through the Looking-Glass - Literature Kit Gr. 5-6


Book Description

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.




Little House on the Prairie - Literature Kit Gr. 3-4


Book Description

Find out what life on the prairie was really like with this retelling of actual events. The thorough and comprehensive questions are great for small group work. Students put themselves in Laura's shoes as she experiences the hardships of living on the prairie. Test student comprehension of key vocabulary words found in the novel. Students explore what they learn about life on the prairie, particularly with how Pa builds the log cabin. Challenge students to describe Laura's surroundings while living on the prairie. Reenact your favorite scene from the novel in small groups. Complete a story map graphic organizer, following the events that take place during Laura's time on the prairie. 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: Little House on the Prairie follows one family's journey to a new home and new beginnings. Laura lives in a house in the Big Woods. But the area is becoming too crowded. Her father decides to uproot and move out to the prairies, where the land is vast and plentiful. On their journey, the family must cross two great rivers before the ice melts. They camp out alone with very little between them and their harsh environment. Soon they arrive on the prairie and choose a place to settle. But their hardships don't end there. While they build their new log cabin and get used to their surroundings, the family must survive illness, fires, wolves, and an increasing native population. As they finally settle in and prepare to plant their first crop, the family's year living on the prairie comes to an end. Little House on the Prairie is an educational story about what life was like in the American Midwest during the 19th century.




The Cricket in Times Square - Literature Kit Gr. 3-4


Book Description

Be uprooted and dropped into a busy and overwhelming city to learn about friendship and belonging. Take all the work out of planning a lesson so there's more time focused on comprehension and engaging hands-on follow-up activities. Do some research on the importance of crickets in the Chinese culture. Compare Chinatown with Times Square by listing three differences. Describe Chester's dream and what he did in response to it. Find the words the author used to represent sounds and explain what sounds they represent. Imagine what it would be like for Harry and Tucker to visit Chester in the country. Get into the 'skin' of Tucker to tell how he would act if he found money in Times Square. 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 Cricket in Times Square is the Newbery Honor-winning story of a cricket who finds himself taken away from his country home and dropped right in the Times Square subway station. Chester Cricket enjoys his home in Connecticut; however, one day he is brought to the city and immediately misses home. While in Times Square, Chester meets Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat, who quickly become friends with the musical insect. Chester is also adopted by Mario, a young boy who's family runs a small newspaper stand in the station. Throughout the story, Chester finds himself amidst many obstacles and struggling to prove he belongs in the big city.