Independent Activities for Higher Level Thinking By Jen Jones & Michele Oates ^ 2012 www.hellojenjones.com
Create a Playlist of a Greek God s/goddess favorite songs. Include at least 6 songs and in order of preference. Justify why these songs are included with reasons based on the God s interests, preferences, values & lifestyle. www.hellojenjones.com
www.hellojenjones.com Create a picture of your God with 4 of his best friends. Two may be other Gods and two must be famous mortals with whom your God would associate (do not have to be living). In your caption, justify the relationship of all five friends.
www.hellojenjones.com Create a WANTED poster for your favorite God. Include key details and illustrations about what your God is wanted for (the crime) the amount of the reward and a creative outlaw name. May draw it/write it OR use http://www.glassgiant.com/wanted/
www.hellojenjones.com Write a Dear John letter to your God from the perspective of a former spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend. This is a Dear Zeus, break-up letter that explains the writer s feelings about the relationship and why it ended.
www.hellojenjones.com Create a report card from any grade in your God s career including 6 subjects that your God would take and why. Include the grades they earned and comments from at least 3 teachers that reflect your God s understanding of the subject and behavior in class.
www.hellojenjones.com Invent a model of your God s main mode of transportation. Include three bumper stickers or window decals that show what your God would support. I ATHENS
www.hellojenjones.com Create postcards or pictures of your God s favorite three vacation destinations. On each, include at least 3 sentences about why they enjoyed that spot with specific names & nouns. May draw it/write it OR use http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/postcard/
Design a shopping list your God would use with at least three stores, websites or catalogs and tell what your God would use each item for. At least one list needs to be a grocery list telling what your God likes to eat and drink. www.hellojenjones.com
Create an imaginary Facebook profile of your favorite God or Goddess. Include friends, place of employment, 5 Likes of other FB pages, and at least 6 status updates over the course of at least two days. May Write It/Draw It OR use http://www.classtools.net/fb/home/page www.hellojenjones.com
Create a 2 minute podcast urging the people to come to the first Olympics. Tell which events they will see, why they should come and information on how they can buy tickets to each venue. www.hellojenjones.com
Write an editorial newspaper or magazine article featuring an important event or controversy in your god s life. Illustrations and details should be included. Your article should have a clear message as well as your opinions about this event or controversy. www.hellojenjones.com
Design a map of your God s city. Include points of interest, landmarks, etc. Reference Google Maps to see what your God s city looks like today and compare and contrast the city then and now. www.hellojenjones.com
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These activities were written to compliment a unit on Greek Mythology in literature and/or social studies. We are always looking for meaningful and relevant ways to keep students engaged in purposeful higher order activities while doing guided reading and reading conferences. Students love doing so these activities require them to not just read, write or research but gives them the opportunity to make, create, build and do! Whether you choose to ask your students to complete these independent activities as part of Reading Workshop, Research Workshop or social studies, in class or at home, that choice is completely up to you. You can display the large posters somewhere or bind them together and put them at the Independent Center. I also run one copy for each student of the Activity Board (slide 14), I usually let students work together but create individual projects. Students usually self-select 3-4 activities to complete. It would be a lot to ask them to complete them all of the activities. Self-selection increases rigor and engagement, so I always let them choose the activities themselves. Some of the activities require that students research first on the computer and some activities suggest a web. 2.0 option to complete the activity.
The fonts used in the packet are Hello Mister, created by me and available for free on my blog, www.helloliteracy.blogspot.com. The font, MTF Jumpin Jack is from Miss Tiina fonts, which are available here. All cipart was made by me with the exception of the map and Olympic rings which is public domain on Wikimedia Commons. The FB logo is from www.facebook.com. The newspaper is from Microsoft Clipart Gallery and the Wanted Poster is from www.glassgiant.com. This packet is for single classroom use. Please do not email, distribute or copy electronically or otherwise for anyone outside your own classroom, it is for you and your students only. Please kindly let your friends know where they can go to download a set for themselves. We worked very hard to create these higher order thinking activities and you would be giving away in a second what took use many hours to create. Thank you for abiding by all laws of copyright. -Jen & Michele www.hellojenjones.com