Charlotte’s Web ~ I’m so excited to share one of my favorite books with you for my weekly Wait for it Wednesday blog post:
Charlotte’s Web is a beloved story ~ such an easy read just as easy to fall in love with… I remember so clearly sitting in my third grade class listening to this story and then taking turns doing a Reader’s Theater on it. I was the goose and Wilbur for different chapters. I had read the story before with my mom so the ending wasn’t a surprise to me. I looked around the room and saw kids with tears coming down their face. It was the first time they read the story and it was soo sad! My teacher Miss Baggie told us that great stories will bring out emotions. That good writers can bring you to tears of sorrow or joy by how they write the story and develop the characters and story line. Of course pretty much anything Miss Baggie said I thought was gold because she was an amazing teacher and I adored her…but she was absolutely right.
There are so many wonderful ways to do extensions of this story as well as just reading it for pleasure! This book opens the door for such topics as theme, predictions, character analysis and traits and so much more.
My partner teacher and I always show the movie after we read the book and then do a venn diagram comparing and contrasting the movie with the book. This book also has such rich vocabulary for 2nd – 4th graders and it’s a great time to introduce this new vocabulary to them as well. The ideas are truly endless for this story:
It’s a great way to teach cross curricular intentionally. Teaching about spiders is great for science, there are several STEM activities that can be found on pinterest under Charlotte’s Web too. Keeping a journal as one of the characters is a great way to get your kids writing and you can teach mini lessons along the way on punctuation or grammar. The great thing is that this book is so amazing that it motivates your students to do the book extensions. They want to talk about the characters through a simple book talk because they are so drawn to them. Getting them in small groups to discuss the book is awesome and you will see and hear them being engaged and excited about what they read.
I hope you are able to fit this story into your teaching career at some point, it is one of the best pieces of literature out there in my opinion. If you are looking for extension activities that are low prep and ready to go you can take a closer look at my pack by clicking the picture below:
I’d love to hear some fun ways you extend this story in the comments! Happy teaching!
xo,
