6th Grade Community Read

Last week, we had the pleasure of hosting author James Ponti to help us celebrate our first 6th Grade Community Read project. This was something my lower school librarian, Catherine, and I began planning last school year. She hosted her 3rd grade event for Wishtree by Katherine Applegate in the fall. It was a huge success, so I was so excited when we were able to connect with another local school to bring in the amazing James Ponti for our event.

Before winter break, I distributed copies of Framed! by James Ponti to all of our 6th grade students, with a note to go home asking them to read with their parents in anticipation of our event in January. Parents were invited to attend a breakfast and book discussion, followed by the author presentation.

James Ponti’s website has some great resources for teachers, including a mystery game and curriculum guides for his books. I used some of the questions from his curriculum guide for Framed! to have available for our breakfast and book discussion.

Our 6th grade students and parents were joined by our 4th and 5th grade students, who also read Framed! as one of their Battle of the Books picks. Mr. Ponti kept his audience engaged and laughing with stories of his childhood, learning to love reading and writing, his very interesting career path, and of course, TOAST (Theory of All Small Things).

Next, our 6th grade students returned to their homeroom classes to use TOAST to solve a Breakout Game. Because we did not have enough time to use the game Jame Ponti shares on his website, I created a 30 minute game to fit our window of time. You can check it out here.

Finally, we ended the morning with a writing workshop with James Ponti. They worked as a group to practice developing characters and describing setting, then the students spent some time crafting their own stories.

If you’re looking for an author for an engaging visit, I highly recommend James Ponti. Students and parents loved reading Framed! and hearing from the author, and I anticipate that the other books in the series will remain checked out for quite some time.