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Printable Version for your convenience!

Unit contents:

• This part deals with the End of the book, and involves launching a Balloon Journey
  
• Here's a Writing Activity involving the students' Favorite Parts
  
• This section is on the Main Characters and Quoting
  
• This portion is on Acting Out portions of the book
  
• This lesson is on Predicting with Charlotte's Web
  
• This part uses a Crossword Puzzle to learn Scientific Facts about Spiders
  
• This section is on Finding Spiders' Homes
  
• A similar section - Finding Where Spiders Live
  
• Here's More on Finding Where Spiders Live
  
• This portion is on writing Haiku Poems about Spiders
  
• Here students take on the roles of Arachnologists and Interview each other
  
• The Spider's Life Cycle is the subject of this lesson
  
• Graphing the Lengths of Spiders is the subject of this part
  
• More Graphing, this time with Facts about Spiders
  
• Here students Plot Facts about Spiders
  
• Another Math lesson, this one using Spider Math Problems
  
• This part involves doing Research on Spiders
  
• A fun activity for developing Spider Webs out of cold Spaghetti
  
• This portion is on Spiders' Venom
  
• A Writing Activity about Wilbur's First Day
  

Illinois State Goals:
1. Read with understanding and fluency
5. Use the language arts to acquire, assess and communicate information

Instructional Objective:
After reading a section of a selected novel, students will identify at least five of the main characters and connect quotes from the book with these characters on notecards.

Supplies:
* Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White
* notecards
* overhead projector

Anticipatory Set:
* I will begin the discussion with students by bringing up prior knowledge about farm life, pigs, county fairs, spiders, etc: Has anyone ever been to a farm? What kinds of things are on a farm? Did you see pigs on the farm? Did you see any bugs on the farm? How is farm life different from city life?
* I will call on students to write any ideas they might have on the blackboard. * I will explain to the class that we will be beginning a week-long unit with the book, Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White.

Activities:
1. We will read the first section, pp. 1-31, of the book together as a class. Children will take turns reading pages out of the book.
2. I will hold a notecard up to show the children what they will be working with. Then, I will put a visual of a notecard up on an overhead projector.
3. I will ask the children to give me the name of one of the main characters that we just read about. I will write the name of this character on the overhead card, also writing it on the real notecard, and challenge the students to find a quote from the book from this character. When the children find a quote, I will hold up the real notecard again and tell them that, for this activity, I would write the quote on the back.
4. I will pass out five notecards to each child, explaining that they are to do this independently now, naming at least five more characters.
5. Children will search the text for quotes from each of these characters, writing it on the back of the proper notecard.
6. Students will get into groups, taking turns reading the quotes on the backs of the notecards. Group members will try to guess which character stated the quote.

Adaptations:
Cassie (LD)- Must write at least three main characters on the notecards. Instead of writing the quote on the back of the notecards, she may mark them in the book with Post-Its.

Closure:
* I will allow children to get into pairs, making sure that students are working with someone who was not in their group. They should take turns reading the quotes and guessing which character said them.
* I will return the class to its normal arrangement. I will ask students if they found this activity to be hard? Easy? Did it help them to understand the book or the characters better? I will explain that activities like this are important to help us understand the different personalities of different characters. This helps us to understand the book, and makes it easier to know which characters are speaking.
* I will explain that we will be continuing to read the book and complete similar activities throughout the week.

Evaluation:
I will check students' notecards to be sure that they listed at least five main characters. I will also check to be sure that correct quotes are written on the back of each card. Cards will be returned to students who wrote incorrect quotes so they can correct them.

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