• Text on overhead transparencies
• Overhead projector
• Chart paper for a T-Chart graphic organizer
• Writing materials
• Reader?s notebooks

• describe aspects of daily life for men, women, and children in medieval societies (e.g., food, housing, clothing, health, religion, recreation, festivals, crafts, justice, roles);  
• compare aspects of life in a medieval community and their own community (e.g., with respect to housing, social structure, recreation, land use, geography, climate, food, dress, government);
• make connections between social or environmental concerns of medieval times and similar concerns today (e.g., pollution, the spread of disease, crime, warfare, poverty, religious intolerance);

·         identify a variety of reading comprehension strategies and use them appropriately before, during, and 

after reading to understand texts (e.g., ask questions to focus or clarify reading; use visualization to clarify details 

about such things as the sights, sounds, and smells in a medieval castle; synthesize ideas during reading to 

generate a new understanding of a text)

·         read a variety of texts from diverse cultures, including graphic texts (e.g., graphic novels, diagrams, 

brochures, graphs and graphic organizers, charts and tables, maps), and informational texts (e.g., 

textbooks, non-fiction books on a range of topics, print and online newspaper and magazine articles or reviews, 

print and online encyclopedias and atlases, electronic texts such as e-mails or magazines) 

• Make predictions and provide supporting details for their predictions
• Identify text features and functions of these text features
• Restate information learned from a text
• Compare and contrast Life in Medieval Times to life in the present day.

• In a T-chart, students will compare and contrast Medieval Life to life in the present day.
• In their reader?s notebook, students will display their understanding of text features (Ex. Table of Contents and Subheading, and Time Spiral)

• Was the text selection appropriate for the purpose?
• What are students ready to learn next?
• Did students use their prior knowledge?  Did they make connections with the text?

• Introduce the book to students.
•  Discuss the title.
• Introduce the text feature that students will be reviewing today.
• Ask students to find a partner and together predict what information they might find in the book.   

• Place the table of contents on the overhead projector.
• Read aloud the different subheadings

• Lead the students in a brief discussion about the topics they were introduced to in the table of contents, as well as the text layout.
• Have students write down in their reader?s notebook 2 or 3 subheadings that were of a particular interest to them.  (This allows for the teacher to check for understanding of the text features in a table of content, and will further peak the students? interest as they look forward to discovering more information as the book is read).

• Once again read over the Table of Contents on overhead projector.
• Inform students that they will be introduced to a new text feature today, the Time Spiral.
• Using the Table of Contents locate where the Time Spiral can be found in the book.

• Display the Time Spiral on the overhead projector, and have students help you to locate where the Medieval Times, the present day, the days of the pioneer (connecting to prior knowledge ? grade 3 social studies), and approximately when their parents were born.

• Give students an empty template of a Time Spiral and have the students create a Time Spiral of their own lives, beginning at birth and recording major milestones (talking and walking, first day of school, first sleep over, etc.).  They may write or draw the information. 

• Once again read over the Table of Contents on overhead projector.
• Asks students to remember which topic they chose to further investigate.
• Have students locate the page for Basic Facts About Medieval Life (p.6)

• Display p. 6 and 7 (Basic Facts about Medieval Life) on the overhead projector.
• Note that the information on the pages is divided by subheadings.
• Read with students the information provided about each subheading. 

• Asks students if any of the information read seems to correlate with their chosen topic from the table of contents. 
• Have students pair the information (or titles) given on p.6-7 (Basics Facts about Medieval Times) with the topics in the table of contents.  They can do so in their reader?s notebooks.  They can check to make sure that they placed their information under the correct heading when the rest of the book is read during a read aloud after day 4?s activities have been completed.

• Ask students to keep this information in their minds and place p. 10- 12 on the overhead projector.
• Begin to read the questions on p. 10 (under each question there is a page referenced where the answer to the question can be found.
• Lead the students to the answers for each of the questions read.

• Ask the students to see if any of their questions are similar to the questions on p. 10-12.

• Have students use information that they have acquired during the reading to answer their own questions, or to create new questions.
• As a class create a T-Chart and compare how life in the Medieval Times is different from or the same as life today.