I’m back once again with this month’s mentor texts for reading comprehension skills. This month, I discovered several really great books.
If you don’t have any of the books listed below, you can click each picture to find them on Amazon!
12 Questions about the US Constitution
You can read about the Constitution at many points throughout the school year, but I like reading about it during the spring. It usually takes me this long to reach this in our social studies curriculum. This book is a great nonfiction book to help your students discover the answers to common questions about the US Constitution.
I like adjusting my printer settings to print four (or more) graphic organizers to one page. Then, my students can find the main idea and supporting details of each question or section throughout the book!
The Lost Hour
Daylight Savings Time happens every March in most areas of the country. When I stumbled upon this book, I couldn’t resist it! What happens to that lost hour? What does he do? This book is perfect for demonstrating story structure as this lost hour searches for a new job.
Once Upon a Daylight Saving Time
While this book is at a higher reading level, I absolutely LOVE it! In this short story, the rattlesnake needs help adjusting his clock at Daylight Savings Time. He learns that people aren’t willing to help him out when he talks nasty to them. It is written as a poem, with several lines that repeat throughout. It’s so cute and my upper elementary students do really well with this when we pick apart and discuss each part. It is also a great way to expose your students to new vocabulary!
Long Shot
I am NOT a basketball fan, but I wanted to find a great book that could work well with March Madness. While Chris Paul is now in the NBA, I fell in love with the lesson in this book and couldn’t resist sharing it. In this book, Chris Paul is a great basketball player, but people often don’t take him seriously because of his height. The theme in this book is excellent and there are so many opportunities of evidence that your students can find. My favorite quote comes from Chris’s Papa Chilly who says, “Work harder than everyone else on the court and your size won’t matter.”
Tornadoes!
First of all, I love Gail Gibbons. Her books are absolutely amazing, and this book is no exception. In Tornadoes, she shares many facts and details about Tornadoes, but the portion that I love the most is where she explains how tornadoes are classified on the Enhanced Fujita Tornado Scale. I also love the book Tornadoes by S. L. Hamilton because it has an amazing graphic with pictures that show the differences in each classification rank. Maybe the differences are common knowledge to others, but I learned a lot.
In addition to the classification of tornadoes, there is more information about safety, famous tornadoes, and other basic information.
If you are interested in the graphic organizers that I used in the pictures for this post, you can find them in my TpT store. Included in the file, you find both digital and printable versions of each graphic organizer.
I love the holiday ones, but when you push on the months, only February comes up. I wanted to look at October. I love your work!
Hello! Here is the link to the October mentor texts: https://theprimarygal.com/2018/10/mentor-texts-your-students-will-love-in_13.html