Activities

Activity 1

Writing Activity: Pre-writing Graphic Organizer (Creative Writing) 

Ways of Reading: Making Connections, Illustration, and Vocabulary

Click Here to Download!

 

Using the graphic organizer (click the link above), the teacher will guide the students in placing themselves in the shoes of both a business man and an inventor. On pages seventy-eight through eighty-three, Bud Lawrence and Nick’s father discuss the contract and business plan of making a business out of frindle. These pages should be read aloud to the students by the teacher in order to set the stage for this activity.

This is a graphic organizer created to use as pre-writing for a creative writing assignment. After reading the book, Frindle by Andrew Clements, children should place themselves in the shoes of the main character by planning to create their own original word. First, they select any item from their desk and invent a new name for it. Then, the students are guided in recalling the business process described on pages 78-83 by Bud Lawrence, who endorses the word frindle with merchandise and more. Students decide their share of the profit, design an advertisement t-shirt, and think of a slogan for the word.
 

Once this is planned, the creative writing prompt to follow might be: "Using your pre-writing sheet, describe your new word and what it is. Write about the business process you would set up to make your new word a success like Nick did!"

 

Teacher prompts to students while using this pre-writing organizer:

 “Nick invented the original frindle. Now it’s your turn! Choose one item from your desk or the classroom. Now, give that item a brand new name. Invent your own word, just like Nick did! Draw a picture of this item and write its new name (your own word) in the banner above it.”

“Now, think of yourself as Bud Lawrence, the business man. You new product and word is a big hit! In each box, jot down ideas in a list for each step of making your product a business.”

Activity 2

Comprehension Activity: Post-it Venn Diagram (Main Characters)

Ways of Reading: Key Passages and Making Connections

            Venn Diagram: As a class, the students will be led in comparing the characteristics of Nick and Mrs. Granger. What is strongly different about them? What traits do they share?

            A large Venn diagram will be displayed on the interactive or dry-erase whiteboard. Volunteers will be asked to write or draw their ideas on the board as the group discusses the similarities and differences. Students will be given a paper copy of a blank Venn diagram in order copy and/or draw pictures of traits shared on the board.

            As students contribute thoughts and traits for the diagram, the teacher will assist them in finding key passages from the text to illustrate these points. Prior to the activity, the teacher will have already selected passages that illustrate each character well. Doing so will model the good reading habit of supporting one’s thoughts with evidence from the text.

           Each student will be given two Post-it notes. It will be their responsibility to flag a passage from the book for each of the two main characters. On that note, they should also jot down three of the characteristics contributed to the Venn diagram.

Activity 3

Comprehension Activity: Illustration & Quote Storyboard

Ways of Reading: Illustration, Key Passages, Making Connections

Click Here to Download! 



            A third activity a teacher might do to support the seven ways to read a text might be an illustration storyboard. I provided a link to download an example of this graphic organizer above! Students should be encouraged to identify three key scenes that best represent the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

            Descriptions of these three scenes should be found within the text and then flagged with a Post-it note. Students may be asked to draw the mental image they thought of as the read each scene on the Post-its.

            To complete the illustration storyboard, students will need to draw a visual representation of each of three key scenes, one from the beginning, middle, and end of the story. This could be done as a hand sketch or by pasting in the sketched Post-it notes used to mark the scenes in the text. Then, the child will select a short quote to represent each of the three key scenes, including the page number. Lastly, the student will describe the event in their own words based on what they read and drew.

This graphic organizer guides students to represent the images from key events they can recall from the beginning, middle, and end of Frindle by Andrew Clements. It should do well to assess their comprehension of the story’s sequence. Also, this activity ensure that the children are forming visuals in their mind as they read, anchoring those visuals to quotes from the text and their own unique interpretations.