Planning for Reading and Writing

One book I have always loved is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I feel like this book would make an amazing literary unit because there are so many different things you can do with it. First of all, this is a great book for making predictions. Students can predict what they think the book may be about based on the title or taking a picture walk through the illustrations. Also, this book gives a lot of opportunity for writing. Students could write a letter to Alexander to make suggestions on how to turn his day around, which teaches students empathy and coping skills. Students could also write and illustrate about a bad day they have had. This book could also be tied into math. Students could list of all the things that happened to Alexander or what makes them have a bad day, and then vote and make a graph on which one is the worst. Students can also practice sequencing with this book. I always enjoyed reading this book as a child and think it would be really fun to incorporate it into my classroom one day. The classroom I work in at Fuller Elementary recently went to see the play Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I think that would be a great way to finish out the unit.