Leah's Pony and Common Core

I don't know if anyone uses the story Leah's Pony in their reading class, but I do.  It is a wonderful story about the Great Dust Bowl and how a girl sells her most prized possession, her horse, to help out her family.  Her neighbors find out that she is selling her horse and they buy it back for her.

It is a great historical story that teaches the students about sharing, caring, and the Dust Bowl.  I'm trying to incorporate a lot more nonfiction or historical fiction into my reading class lately to gear up for the common core.

I have one page about using adjectives to describe the main character, Leah.  The students have to site details from the story using page numbers.

I have another page about writing how the horse felt about being sold from the horse's point of view...again siting page numbers and information from the text.

And the last page is finding facts from the story (with page numbers) and making their own opinions about each one.

 

I'm really trying to get my students to site information from the text.  It sure is hard with third graders, though.  If you could use these, you can click on the last picture and go to google documents to download them for fee.  But could you please leave me a comment below to tell me how you are implementing common core into your current reading class???  Thanks in advance...and happy common core!  :)