Skip to main content

"Become a Biographer" - A Product Review

Available on Amped Up Learning
"Become a Biographer" from Homeschool Holiday and Happy Hive Homeschool is a fantastic multimedia product, especially for your younger learners and English Language Learners (ELLs). Created by Christy Gandara, this resource introduces students to the biography subgenre first as a text to be read, and then as a form of writing and reflection with expression.

About Christy Gandara

Christy Gandara is not only a home school mom of three "bugs" (her term, not mine!), but she is also a California certified teacher with 19 years of classroom experience, all in the K-8 grade ranges. This gives her a unique perspective on resource creation, not only for other home school families, but also for the actively teaching classroom teacher. She both knows and understands the challenges of engaging our students and providing them with rigorous curriculum material that they will WANT to interact with!

Become a Biographer - A Multimedia, Interactive Resource

Okay, first of all, Christy had me at Brad Meltzer! I mean, seriously, anytime you have a writer of his caliber TEACHING your students about his interests, his heroes and heroines, and his craft, you cannot help but win. Using Meltzer's "Ordinary People Change the World" series is already incredibly effective, but pairing the texts with Meltzer's "SAFE" YouTube links of HIS reading of his work takes it to another level. 

Christy didn't stop there though. She created a set of interactive PDFs and a set of interactive PowerPoint presentations to allow students to self-pace, self-guide, and self-select their texts and their assignments. People, can we say instant student buy-in? So, how does it work? Students begin by going to the virtual bookshelf in Mrs. Crabtree's virtual classroom library, and selecting a text. Now, although it is not a requirement, I STRONGLY urge you to have the physical books available for your students as well as these virtual books. The student selects his or her text, clicks on it, and is instantly taken to Brad Meltzer's SAFE YouTube reading of the book!
Mrs. Crabtree's virtual bookshelves

Here is his reading of "I am Amelia Earhart".  NOTE: This is not the linked version, which is SAFE YouTube. That service was unavailable to me when I wrote this! 

From here, Christy has provided students with either a fill-able PPT, PDF, or printout of a facts page that the students complete during the reading of the book.
Fact Sheet for Amelia Earhart
for students to complete during
reading.

In addition to the life events that the students fill in, the bottom has the story's theme or moral, in this case, "I will know no bounds."

She then leads your students to scholarship with a fantastic extension. Students are guided through an interview process with a hero of their own choosing, from their own lives. I cannot think of a more meaningful connection to the stories, or the theme that Meltzer introduces our students to...Ordinary People Change the World.

"Become a Biographer". Price: $2.00 (USD)


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Guest Post: Adding BOOM! Cards (TM) to Your Toolbox by Sarah Renish

Note from Matthew at ELA in Middle School This post was written by Sarah Renish, Teacher and Teacher-Author Entrepreneur. Sarah is the owner of Ratelis Science , which has a storefront on BOOM!Learning  (SM), Amped Up Learning and TpT . We are in a couple of the same Facebook groups, and when I had questions about BOOM! Cards (TM), she was kind enough to teach me! She has since written this post for us all here. Thanks, Sarah!  Boom Learning and Boom Cards are the trademarks of Boom Learning, Inc. Used with Permission. Sarah's Biography Sarah Renish I am a 6-12 science teacher in Wisconsin that has over 20 years of teaching experience working with students from diverse backgrounds, including at-risk, ELL, SPED, and Gifted & Talented students. I am actively involved in developing and teaching professional development opportunities related to science instructional best practices. In addition to my regular work for district curriculum committees and numerous profess

Welcome and About Us

Welcome to Wandering the Halls of Academia - Teaching and Living Today! Suzanne and Matthew, December 2019 This Blog is about teaching, classroom tips, and living a balanced life of meaning! We will be posting about practices, travel, and products we make for the classroom. Additionally, we will discuss products from other teacher authors. Matthew will be writing and posting some of our posts, while Suzanne will be creating others. We will also have guest bloggers from time to time, and links to other blogs we like or feel you may find interesting! Matthew is a Middle School ELA teacher, leads Professional Development sessions in Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS), the integration of online educational platforms in the classroom, and classroom management/CHAMPS. Suzanne has been a substitute teacher, an interventionist in Math and SPED, and holds a degree in Animal Science, with an emphasis on genetics. We are both teacher-authors of educational products

What's Been Happening, and, Introducing a New Line of Resources for Writing Essays!

An ancient Chinese curse says, if I have it correct, "May you live in interesting times." Well, we all certainly do live in interesting times today! School districts, as well as entire nations in some cases, are still trying to work out how to best serve our students in the coming months as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Yet, here in the States, professional sports are returning and reopening, which begs a question: how are the football players going to huddle up while maintaining social distancing? Let alone the fans? The players may wear face shields on their helmets, which may help, but the fans? You can't even get them to keep their clothes on when it's snowing in the stadium! Do we really believe they will keep masks on? And will they really remain 6 feet apart? And how will you drink your beer and eat your hot dogs with a mask on? "Get hots! Get 'cher Red Hots!" Riiight... I have returned to Texas from Tennessee, and I have to say that it is good