My Father's Dragon

Before Spring Break we finished reading one of my very favorite read aloud novels, My Father's Dragon.  This is a adventure tale of a young boy who journeys to Wild Island with the mission of freeing a baby dragon that is being treated as a slave.  Before leaving Elmer Elevator, the main character, meets a cat who gives him a laundry list of items to take with him.  Elmer packs each of the items in his knapsack and stows away for the adventure of a lifetime.
To make this novel even more engaging and highly interactive, the students each created a knapsack and packed it just as Elmer did.  They then wrote predictions for how they thought each of the items would be used.  As we read, whenever Elmer would find himself in a predicament the students would reach into their knapsacks and pull out the item they thought he could use to help get him out of the current mess he was in.  These discussions were so rich!  After we read on students would determine what in fact was used and write down how it was used on their item card.  So engaging!  It was almost as if a was preforming an interactive play as I read this memorable novel to the class.