Surprise Island, by Gertrude Chandler Warner is about the Alden children. The children's names are Henry, Jesse, Violet, and Benny. In this book of Boxcar Children series, the children go to their grandfather's island to live on their own for the summer. They turn a barn that is on the island into their home, and they have to take care of themselves (for the most part). There is a handyman, named Joe, who the children become very close with. Joe seems to know almost everything, and he is with the children a lot during their adventures on the island. The children start a museum in the loft of the barn. They fill the museum with findings from their adventures. Later in the book, the children find out that Joe is their cousin that had gone missing. He worked at their grandfather's museum and that is how he knew so much about the things they were finding on their adventures. The children reunite Joe and their grandfather towards the end of the book. They are very excited about Joe moving into their grandfather's house with them.
I think this book would be great for second and third grade students. The students would probably really like the sense of adventure that is in the book. There are so many activities that could be done with this book. The first one that comes to mind is having the students create their own museum in the classroom. You could invite other classes to come to your museum and you could even have a family night where parents could come see the museum. Each students could make their own exhibit and have to explain it. They could also write a report about their exhibit. Here is a link to additional activities that could be done with this book.
http://www.boxcarchildren.com/book/surprise-island/
Gossip Girl takes place in the Upper East Side of New York. The main characters are Blair and Serena. The two girls were best friends, until Blair's boyfriend, Nate, cheated on her with Serena. After Blair found out about her best friend and her boyfriend, Serena disappeared out of the blue. When Serena came back, she tries to make things up to Blair. Blair does not even want to try to forgive Serena. Blair sees that her ex best friend has a new boyfriend, and she tries to get back at Serena.
This book would definitely be for the high school grades. Not only is it lengthy, but there are too many things that happen in the book for younger girls to even begin to understand. High school girls could definitely relate to this book. I think a good activity for them would be to write in a journal, acting like they are either Blair or Serena. It would be interesting to see how different the journal entries are.
Questions to Consider:
Questions to Consider:
Journal entries could be very interesting for high school girls while reading Gossip Girl. Not only would this text relate to high school girls, I think it would interest them as well. I read the Boxcar Children books as a kid and I absolutely loved them. I would love to use them in my classroom as well. One thing I think would be fun to do with students is to have them plan their own adventure. Where would they go? Who would they take with them? It would be a fun activity and interesting to see what students would come up with.
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