How to Use the Scholastic Magazine in Your Classroom: 5 Day Differentiated Guided Reading Lesson
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This post brought to you in collaboration with Scholastic Magazines. All opinions are my own.
Scholastic Magazines have long been a favorite of mine to use but I hadn’t used the SuperScience magazines so I was really excited to work with them! At our school we pride ourselves on individualized education and so my lessons here are tailored to meet the need of each student in a unique way.
The great thing about these magazines is that it limits the student’s need for extensive reading but is highly informative and engaging. With your magazine subscription it includes FREE online resources – including videos, games, lesson plans, skills sheets, and more.
PLUS check out this FREE 30 day trial for Scholastic Printables!
Using the Scholastic SuperScience magazines we received I created a Differentiated Guided Reading Lesson to utilize for an entire week of reading centers which you can find broken down below:
How to Use the Scholastic Magazine in Your Classroom:
Details: All reading centers are created for 60-90 minute block of time. During this time you will divide your group based on ability. The purpose of this time is to deliver instruction based on the needs of the student. You will have three different activities during this time.
Full 5 Day Reading Center Activities Includes:
1. Small group instruction which is teacher led.
2. Hands on creative learning activities which is independent practice.
3. Integrated Technology activities used to build background and reinforce the content covered from the Scholastic Magazine.
Below is a copy of my center cycles.
During the Teacher center, there is a desire to differentiate the instruction to address the abilities of each student.
Green Gators or Advanced students – hand the questions to answer to your students after you have read the stories. Review answers together and encourage discussion based on the answers the students provided.
Yellow Yaks or Grade level students – Walk the students through answering the questions on paper. Encourage complete sentences.
Red Rabbits or Struggling readers – By auditory means, walk them through answering the questions having them verbally answer the questions. Pick a question or two to have them answer on paper giving assistance where needed.
Day 1 Reading Center Activities: Content Covers Page 2-3
Teacher Center: Read through each of these stories asking questions throughout the lesson. For example ask: How many years did it take for Mount Rushmore to be completed? The article does not explicitly answer this simply but it does give us the date that construction started and the date that construction ended.
Independent Practice: Show a picture of Mount Rushmore and short description about the four famous presidents of the United States. Next have each student do the following: Draw the famous people they would put on the 4 faces of Mount Rushmore. Write 2-4 sentences explaining about each person you drew. OR you can use the FREE Printable I made exclusively for this lesson here: Blank Faces Mount Rushmore Writing Activity
Building Background: Have students watch the video on the making of Mount Rushmore. If finished early, students may play the games associated with the magazine.
Day 2 Reading Center Activities: Content Covers Page 4-7
Teacher Center: Read through each of these stories asking questions throughout the lesson.
Independent Practice: Give students sticks, leafs, and flower petals from outside the school. Ask each student to use these items to create an animal that may be in disguise. They can make up their own animal and they need to write 4-8 sentences about their animal or insect and the way it can disguise itself.
Building Background: Have students watch videos provided on each animal from pages 4-7. If finished early, students may play the games associated with the magazine.
Day 3 Reading Center Activities: Content Covers Page 8-9
Teacher Center: Read through each of these stories asking questions throughout the lesson.
Independent Practice: Encourage students to draw a picture of the solar system using an 18×11 sheet of paper. Have them imagine, draw, and name a ninth planet.
Building Background: Have students watch the video provided on The Hunt for Planet Nine. If finished early, students may play the games associated with the magazine.
Day 4 Reading Center Activities: Content Covers Page 10-13
Teacher Center: Read through each of these stories asking questions throughout the lesson.
Independent Practice: Have the students Complete the science experiment and answer the questions found under the section conclusions. Students may complete this as partners.
Building Background: Have students watch the provided video about how they are to complete the Mystery Box experiment. If finished early, students may play the games associated with the magazine or create their own cartouche. There are several ways students can create their own cartouche depending on what materials you have on hand. You can simply print out a hieroglyphics guide and let them practice practice writing their name on paper. Or wrap a piece of aluminum foil over a piece of cardboard and let them write their names in hieroglyphics with a black Sharpie marker.
Day 5 Reading Center Activities: Content Covers Page 14-16
Teacher Center: Read through each of these stories asking questions throughout the lesson.
Independent Practice: Provide a printout on White Nose Syndrome and ask students to brainstorm possible ideas as a group as to how they could help the bats who awaken early before winter is over. Have them explain how some of these ideas can help the bats out.
Building Background: Have students watch the provided videos on Bat Protector. If finished early, students may play the games associated with the magazine. You can also print our Bats Coloring Page shown above or our “B” is for Bat Coloring Page.
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