With our school plans changing for next year, I saw an opportunity to create my own Literature Curriculum. It is coming together nicely, piece by piece, and I am excited to share some sneak peeks of what's to come.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Full Family Unit Study
It's here, and I'm eager for us to get home and officially begin this unit. I've created a few multi-level unit studies for our Christmas School over the last few years. Still, around the end of August, I realized Thumper would be finishing up our core curriculum by the end of September, so I knew I needed something to fill up her time until we began the Thanksgiving unit I had already planned to use for November. I had had the idea in the back of my mind to do a Sleepy Hollow Unit Study in a year or two, but I decided to give it a shot and complete it this year once we returned to our home base for the winter holiday season. I worked some early mornings, took advantage of nap times, and seized work time whenever possible to complete this unit for us and others, with the goal of finishing it by October 1st. I met that goal, with a few days to spare.
I know I have a few high school essays I would like to add, and possibly some preschool materials to include, but I'm happy with what I've been able to accomplish and feel it will make for a pretty rich unit with what I currently have done.
The Big-Whole Family or Multi-level Classroom Unit is a 15-Day Unit study that breaks down the Reading of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow into 10 days, so that we can dive deep into the literature with profound family-group-centered lessons, end-of-lesson wrap-up activities, and multiple extension activities that have several (90+) optional worksheets available. Older students will challenge themselves independently using the Reading Journal portion of this study, where they will engage with journal entries, discussions, comprehension questions, and literary element reviews and extensions.
The learning doesn’t stop once we finish reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Students will then complete a study guide tailored to their age level, which correlates with the final test at their respective level. To celebrate the end of the unit, students will watch Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and compare it to Irving’s text with a comparison guide. If that wasn’t enough, students can also let their creativity shine in one of the FIVE available projects with this unit. Elementary students can make a diorama of their favorite scene. At the same time, middle schoolers can choose to retell the story in a comic book or picture book remake, or they can become Sleepy Hollow tour guides with the Creepy Tour Guide Project. High schoolers can be challenged to build a Cold Case File for the missing Ichabod Crane or create a Modern TV adaptation.
To tie this unit together, I’m including a BONUS Legend of Sleepy Hollow-themed dinner with a Menu and recipes inspired by the story.
You can choose to purchase this complete family-group unit study or purchase some of the individual components instead/
Items Available Individually:
Look for an update/recap of how the unit goes for us at the end of October.
For now, this unit and any of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow projects can be purchased for 10% off using code SLEEPY25 on the website or with no code needed on my TPT storefront.
EXTRA! EXTRA!-Newspaper Project
During a long-term sub, I did (eons ago now), I had my sophomores create a classroom newspaper. This project has always been in the back of my mind to re-create. I started to create a version of it for Christmas school this year (which I am still planning to do), but my planning exploded, and well, here we are.
Alternative Book Reports
If you have been following us on our Facebook Page or Instagram, you have seen the progression of adding the Alternative Book Report Resources to our Printables page. Since all nineteen of them are finally complete, I figured this labor of love was owed its blog post to introduce them more officially. About two-three years ago, I began creating these alternative book reports for our big girls. We used them for about a year, so I had them all created, but they lacked rubrics and things to enhance them beyond our personal use. I put out a few for sale last year when I put out our Christmas School Units, and they started to sell here and there. I then set out at the beginning of this year to complete them all for sale and create a Bundle of them.
Simply Language Arts Lessons
With this year's Christmas School up and ready for purchase, I have shifted my focus back to creating things for language arts lessons. Formally known here as Beyond Literature, I am rebranding it Simply Language Arts so as not to be confused with another curriculum by that name and also to be able to expand into things besides literature.