Today in fifth grade, we dissected our weekly reading store on our classroom wall! After reading Double Dutch, I had my students pair up and gave each pair of students eight blank index cards. Their instructions were to write down, in order the most important events throughout the story (using words from the text), illustrating these events on the backs of the cards. After they finished this part, we gathered as a whole class, and mixed all of the cards together.
Next, they each began piecing the index cards on the wall timeline. My students were instructed to pick cards that were not theirs and decide where they should be placed on the timeline. If there were similar quotes, they were to put them on top of each other. Once more cards were applied, it got a little bit trickier. They reread sections of their story and had to look back at the text to see which pieces went where.
I loved that the events were similar, but some of the words on the cards were different. This made the activity even more challenging. When we were finished, we took a step back to observe the final product. We talked about what they noticed or what stuck out to them. One of my favorite things mentioned was that the story and our activity both connected because they involved team work. I love it when a lesson comes together this wonderfully!
This is a super easy activity to incorporate with ANY story.... and you only need some tape/yarn/ribbon and index cards to make it work! I used colored Scotch masking tape that I already had on hand. Very minimal prep is what this teacher prefers!
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