Mentor Text, Freebie, & a Winner!

Today I am linking up with my friends Amanda and Stacia for their Mentor Text linky.  This week's topic is Social Studies and I am excited to share with you a text to use for Black History Month.  As a mother of three boys I am always trying to find text that interest the boys of my class.  I feel that sometimes it is more difficult to excite them about reading than the girls.

I am so ready for Spring, and when I think of Spring I think of baseball!  Jackie Robinson: Strong Inside and Out by Time for Kids Biographies is a great text for intermediate grades.  

Images from Amazon and clipart from EduClips

This is a great book to use to show the struggles Jackie faced when he entered the baseball league and how he overcame those obstacles.

My students LOVE history, so any text I can find with real photos is perfect for my class!  The images in this text are photos from the past and capture Jackie's life and the time period.

I love the timeline at the end of this text for students to visually see where Jackie's struggles and triumphs fell during the historical events of the 1900s.

As I mentioned above I am so ready for Spring!  I created a set of Baseball Themed Flippables to use with Jackie Robinson: Strong Inside and Out and other baseball themed stories, or any other text.

Freebie Alert!  I love when my students can annotate and be active readers with their pencils, but dislike using a text from a book because they can not write in the book. To help eliminate the problem I created my Active Reading product. Included are three sheets, one for focusing on theme, one for main idea, and one for summarizing. I hope your students will enjoy using it too!

Winner!  I am excited to announce that  Gina T.  has won the "Read America" shirt from MimisChest and a $20 Amazon gift card!  Congratulations!