Realism vs. Fantasy: Hands On Sorting

      Let's talk Realism and Fantasy!  This week we started our first reading story of the school year and our targeted skill was determining the differences between realism and fantasy.  This is a great skill to start the year with because students have a great amount of background knowlege to connect to!  I love to have my students make a simple T-chart in their Reading/Writing notebooks.  Then I pass out a stack of extra book orders!  It is like a feeding frenzy!  First we place several books on the T-Chart as a whole class.  Once they have the hang of it, students are able to peruze the book order and cut out books that they are interested in.  I always make it a point to place Diary of a Wimpy Kid on the T-Chart as a class.  We talk about how the pictures look like it might be fantasy, but the content of the book is actually realism since it is about a believable characted named Greg.  Students then start to make the connection that there are many books like Ramona, Judy Moody, etc that are also realism.  This is where the lesson really starts to hit home!  Now we just have to work on spelling correctly ;)
~Heather