Acts of Kindness with Ordinary Mary

Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed is a fabulous book that really illustrates for children how they can make a difference in the world with simple acts of kindness.  It's great for any time of the year! This book is a perfect tie to citizenship in Social Studies.  It's also perfect for all elementary aged students.  We always start the year off with the beginning portions of standards.  For this book we tied it to retelling or recounting stories.  Students are directed to retell the story in just three sentences using text evidence.  Before you start worrying about having older kids retell with just three sentences, please know that we are setting the precedence for the year.  Students must write quality sentences that use text evidence and transition words.  Once they have this mastered with three sentences we can build on.  It's important not to jump ahead and have students writing thesis statements when they can't write a proper sentence.  Watch my video below to see more ideas on how to bring quality literature into your reading block and how to use this book in your teaching. Have an amazing day!