Let’s get creative with 5 ways to use our Crayon-Themed Close Reading Freebie!
So, maybe you’ve already downloaded our Close Reading Freebie, or maybe you’ve been waiting until the right moment. Either way, we are going to talk today about several different ways to use this awesome Crayon-themed Close Reading Activity to engage readers, make your classroom more ‘colorful,’ and step outside the crayon-box a little (see what I did there)!
Close Reads are incredibly valuable for teaching students how to think while they reading.
Rather than being passive consumers of content, close reading activities (especially those with mystery pictures) encourage students to actively engage in their reading.
There are many reasons why you might start the year with Close Reads, and we have created a pretty good list in this blog post, but in this post, we are talking specifically about this Crayon-Themed Close Reading Freebie that you can download right now absolutely for free to start using in your classroom ASAP!
Today we are talking about 5 ways to use our Crayon-Themed Close Reading freebie to encourage student investment, connect to other subject areas, and generally have a little extra fun.
Some of these you may have thought of yourself, but hopefully, there are a few little nuggets in here that will spark a new way to use this fun little resource.
#1 | Create your own
After completing the Crayon-Themed Close Read, encourage students to create their own set of questions and their own Mystery Picture by using this Create Your Own Close Read project plan. This will give students a chance to dive into the resource to create new questions, consider what kinds of images they will use in their mystery picture, and generally think about the text in a whole new way…through the eyes of a teacher or creator (rather than just a consumer). This would be a great group project or extension opportunity for students!
#2 | Inspire a research project
All of our Close Reads with Mystery Pictures topics are specifically designed to be high-interest topics that students will enjoy learning about. You can use this Crayon-Themed Close Reading freebie to encourage students to start a project about something they’ve learned through the Close Read.
Here are a few topic suggestions:
- Research other companies that make crayons
- Research topics related to color (like color theory)
- Research some of Crayola’s™ other products
- Research even more important dates in Crayola’s™ history, and develop a timeline
#3 | Do Science projects that use crayons
On the day the students work through the Crayon-Themed Close Read. Explore some science projects that utilize Crayola™ products. This site has several crayon-themed science experiments that may work in your classroom.
#4 | Do a play
Another of the many ways to use our Crayon-Themed Close Reads is to turn it into a play.
After learning about how Crayola™ was started, encourage students to use their writing and presenting skills to create a fictional play that covers some part of the history of Crayola™ they originally learned about in the close read.
They can then do some additional research to expand on their moment or create fictional situations they come up with using their imaginations.
#5 | Have a crayon-themed week
One the best ways to use our Crayon-Themed Close Reading freebie is to pair it up with other crayon-related projects and resources to create a crayon-themed week in the class.
We recommend doing this theme week right around March 31 as that is National Crayon Day.
In addition to using the Crayon-Themed Close Reading Freebie, you could also do Crayon Day as a Holiday of the Day writing prompt, do Crayon science projects, melt crayon art, the plays we mentioned in #4, and so much more!!
BONUS IDEA: Use this blog post to up-level your close reading experience.
With so many different ways to use our Crayon-Themed Close Reading freebie in your classroom, you could very easily end up with a whole week worth of activities for your students to explore. Have fun with this theme and the resource and let us know what you decide to do! We’d love to hear about your experiences using this freebie and see any pictures you’d be willing to share!
