First Day Back

Today was our first day back to school from Summer break. I walked in the door and the custodians are starting to wax the floor. What?! You have had 4 weeks with an empty building and this is when your start this. Then when I got down to my office I was slapped in the face with heat and the realization that we weren't going to have air again this summer in our office. I wasn't excited about the start to this day.
At our 8:00am meeting, I was informed that the books I got to order at the end of the year were in and   I was back to my positive attitude. Who doesn't love new books? This is where I am taking this post today.
     The books, I was lucky enough to go through today, are the books we order for all of our teachers to use with their students this year. Most of the books that where ordered were for our Social Studies department. I am a huge fan of cross-curricular teaching. This is something our campus started focusing on at the end of last school year and plan on focusing more on this school year.  I am so excited about some of these books I can hardly stand it. As an ELA teacher I just assumed all teachers got excited about books, I have found out that this is not the case.
      The books I am most excited about are "_____ The Experience" books. Do you remember Encyclopedia Brown Adventure books? ( I loved these books!) These books are choose your adventure books, but they are all based on true events. In the Civil War book, you choose who you are, Confederate soldier, Union Soldier, or civilian. Then you make choices and your characters life plays out. My thought is that these short adventures would be great unit opener.
    Workshop Model:
      The students could get into small groups, track a characters situation, and then share out.
Opening- minimal information on the event (10mins)
Work Time- have the students make a character choice
      Alone/solo time- students have 5mins to write what they think will happen to their character.
      Group time-  have the students read the book and make the choices that will shape their character's life.
Ending- have the students share out what happened to their character.

I can't wait to see our kid working in book clubs and in workshop in History this year.