One of the assignments during my Spring Children’s Literature course at UCF was creating a mini-teaching guide for the books we read for book clubs. We started with picture books for practice then students created them in their book clubs each week.
Today, I am happy to share the classroom uses and discussion questions found by my UCF Elementary Education students about fantasy novels.
Dragons in a Bag
Author: Zetta Elliott
Published October 23rd, 2018 by Random House
Summary: Jax is left by his mom to an old lady by the name of Ma. Jax later finds out that Ma is a witch who has 3 dragon eggs that hatched. They need to return the eggs because they won’t survive in the regular world due to lack of magic. They go to portals through time that takes them to the time of dinosaurs. Along the way, Jax meets his grandfather who also knows magic, and has him return two of the dragons to the magic council but accidentally left one left behind so he returns to the regular world. He forces his mom and the witch to hash out their problems.
Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: When using fantasy in the classroom it is always a good way to spark your students’ creativity. This source could be used as a creative writing prompt to boost off their creativity of the story: Conduct an activity based upon the book like have them write a short story about what they would do if they were in Jax’s shoes and have them draw pictures of dragons, name them, and design the dragons how they would like them to be pictured.
Discussion Questions:
- What was Jax’s first impression of Ma?
- How do you think Jax will return the last dragon to the magic council?
- Who do agree with and why? Ma who wants to keep the world of magic separate or L. Roy who wants magic to come back to earth.
- Why do you think Jax decided to open the window for the squirrel?
- What were 2 things the dragons were not allowed to have?
- When you first hear the word apprentice what comes to mind? Did you have the same thinking as Jax?
- How does the story tie in with real-life scenarios with the fantasy?
- Who are the most influential character apart from Jax?
- When do we see the change of events come in play throughout the story?
- When reading the book your imagination goes wild,in what other circumstances does your mind go other places when reading this story?
Recommended For:
The Magnificent Makers: How to Test Friendship
Author: Theanne Griffith
Illustrator: Reggie Brown
Published May 19th, 2020 by Random House Children’s Books
Summary: Pablo, Violet and Deepak are three friends who get sucked into a telescope and must play science games to come back and play again. Deepak is the new kid who makes Pablo jealous with his presence. Throughout the book, the team works together and build their friendship to complete the games.
Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: The book could be used as a classroom read-aloud over the course of a few days or a week. Due to the science elements, this book would be a good way to start off science discussions in the classroom. For example, the second chapter includes the students learning about food chains. This book is perfect to make connections back to science.
Discussion Questions:
- Why do you think Pablo was jealous of Deepak?
- What were some of the challenges they had and what did they have to do?
- Why do you think Pablo, Violet, and Deepak were chosen for the Maker’s Maze?
- What do you know about producers, consumers, decomposers, and scavengers?
- What were your favorite aspects of science that you learned from the book?
- What type of emotion did the characters experience in the book?
- When Deepak arrived to class, what did Pablo notice about him?
- How does Pablo overcome is jealous toward Deepak?
- Toward the end of the book why did they relate their friendship to the ecosystems?
Recommended For:
Polly Diamond and the Magic Book
Author: Alice Kuipers
Illustrator: Diana Toledano
Published April 22nd, 2018 by Chronicle Books
Summary: Polly Diamond is a little girl who receives a magic book that lets her bring to life the things that she writes and draws. She has a little sister who she doesn’t like very much and a brother on the way. Polly loves to write, she writes lists and stories and anything that she thinks is worth writing. When she starts writing in her magic book she realizes that the book can talk back to her. She writes to her book and comes up with lists and stories to write. She realizes that whatever she writes in the book comes to life when she writes about making a ladder to paint her room and the books on the floor magically move to make a ladder. The book tells her that is what she’s for and Polly quickly learns she can do anything she writes. She makes herself invisible and her sister into a banana. But she realizes that the book is taking everything she says literally. When she writes about eating a club sandwich the book gives her two slices of bread with a bat in between because it took the definition of a club literally. She told the house to fix up the carpet and turn her room into an aquarium. But the carpet was on the ceiling and fish were swimming around her room. She then realizes that everything she wrote was crazy and tries to put the house back to normal because she can’t even recognize it anymore. She fixes it just in time for her parents to come home with her new baby brother. At the end of the story she gives the book a name, Spell. And looks forward to writing and drawing another day with her new book, and friend Spell.
Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Polly uses and explains words like metaphor, affixes, alliteration, and hyperbole. This is a great opportunity to talk about these definitions, make lists of words and phrases that relate to these words, and do activities where the students use metaphors, alliteration, homophones, homonyms etc. It seems like a useful book to have in a first grade classroom and use with a higher level reading small group or a second grade class. It could also be used as a read aloud, again discussing the key words and their meanings, then practicing using those skills. There is a lot of use of imagery in this book as well as understanding literal meaning and how words matter.
After reading the text, students can respond to the story by engaging in a free write activity after they finish the reading. As a teacher, we could set a timer for five minutes and ask the students to write continuously about their thoughts on the book, good or bad, and afterwards, go over it as a small group.
Discussion Questions:
- Polly had many favorite words throughout the book, what are some of your favorite words and why?
- Make a list of activities you would do to have a Super-Fantastic-Day.
- In the book, Polly writes down what her dream bedroom would look like. If you could have your dream bedroom, what would it look like?
- When Polly writes in the magic book, she learns that she needs to write clearly and use as much detail as possible. What are some important rules to follow when writing so people can understand your message clearly?
- When Polly is playing hide-and-seek, why does she become invisible?
- Imagine the turquoise notebook has changed your house like Polly’s. Please write a short story explaining what your home looks like in order to get it back to normal.
- How does Polly feel having to share a room with her little sister when her brother is born?
- If you had a magic notebook that could bring three things you wrote about to life, what 3 things would you write or draw and why?
- Polly loves words with double letters like “Dizzy.” List 5 words you can think of that have double letters.
- Polly loves alliteration. That’s when two or more words in a row begin with the same letter. What alliterations can you think of?
Recommended For:
Sisters of the Neversea
Author: Cynthia Leitich Smith
Published June 1st, 2021 by Heartdrum
Summary: This book is a tale about three children, Lily, Wendy, and Michael. Their parents, Mr. Darling and Ms. Florene Roberts-Darling are separating, splitting the family between two different locations. The night before Wendy and Mr. Darling are supposed to leave, the children are visited by a boy named Peter Pan and Belle. Stories of pirates and merfolk persuade the children to follow Peter Pan and Belle off to a mystical land called Neverland. Upon arriving the children are separated and discover once you arrive you can never leave. The children meet merfolk, pirates, native children, the lost, and fairies in a desperate attempt to figure out how to get home.
Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: This book will be great for a read aloud, book club, or close reading because it involves a lot of higher level vocabulary than some students may currently be reading at and it has long sentences and dialogue which again, some children could struggle with. These classroom uses would allow for discussions.
Geography could also be tied in because students could illustrate and demonstrate caves and waterways the Merfolk might have dwelled in. They also could show their knowledge of what an island like Neverland might have, and include what trees they think the lost boys were living in.
And, of course, it could be looked at versus Peter Pan as it is a retelling.
Discussion Questions:
- If you were a character in this book, who would you be and why?
- If you were to create a different ending, How would it go?
- Why do you think Mr. Darling and Ms. Florene wanted to separate?
- What was your favorite part of the book?
- What were some challenges that the children had to face or overcome?
- Why do you think Peter Pan and Belle appeared?
- Why do you think it was hard for the lost boys to remember who they are?
- Why do you think Peter Pan never wanted to grow up?
- Why do you think Belle brought Peter Pan to the island?
- Why do you think the crocodile made a TikTok sound?
- Does this book remind you of any other children’s stories? If so why?
Recommended For:
“An engaging series opener about the power of truth to moor and free even the sulkiest of souls.” -Kirkus Reviews
