Starting The City of Ember

I love fresh beginnings ... especially the fresh beginning of a brand new class novel. Our start back to school this month meant the start of a new novel for us - The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. Knowing I wanted to do this novel with the class at some point this year, I bought the 4-book series this summer.

We're four chapters in right now, and my students are LOVING it! I bought two different guides from TPT for our novel study. You can see them HERE and HERE. I really like having the huge variety of activities to choose from - and it's so easy to differentiate for my students.

Related:Paris: Made by Hand

We've also been using my Story Elements Question Fans for discussion questions after our daily oral reading. I have been blown away by the depth of our conversations. The students are really into this book and it shows - I can't believe the intricate details they have remembered ... and the way they are challenging and building on other students' answers is amazing!

We've been focusing a lot on setting at the beginning of the novel. I ask them questions from the setting pack in the fans, then we've been filling in our map, discussing significant places after each chapter. We're building towards this fabulous idea of a 3D Mural I saw on Jen Maschari's blog. You've got to click HERE to see the picture - trust me! I showed my students this pic and they are SO excited to create this mural - they've already requested certain jobs and parts within the mural. Later this week I will group them into 3 groups (above Ember, Ember, and below Ember) and they will begin writing down setting details and deciding on their roles. I don't think I can hold them off much longer. I already prepped a bulletin board for this project - I think I'm as excited as my students! ;)