Please note that we will not be updating this page again until the end of August. Have a great summer!

For the first couple of months of school, we have four different true stories that we’re going to examine with the students: Owen and Mzee, Tarra and Bella, Suryia and Roscoe, and The One and Only Ivan (with which we will also be participating in the Global Read Aloud Project). Below are trailers for each of the books. Have your children watch these trailers, and using the images and the text in the movies, have your children predict some of the common themes in the books.

Get your children to find one photograph from home or one image online  that they think would match with any of their predicted themes. Have them bring in this photograph or a link to the image on the first day of school. We’re going to collect this information, and then over the first couple of months of school, the students are going to use these photographs and images to create their own “trailers,” but on different themes instead of on different books.

Please make sure that,

• the photograph or image can be shared online.
• the photograph or image can remain at school for an extended period of time.
• your child’s name is on the back of any photographs or images that you want returned.

We can’t wait to see the results of this first reading, oral language, and media literacy homework assignment!

Gina Bucciacchio and Aviva Dunsiger