Teacher Rachael's 3rd-grade class read Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo, together. When they got to the section of the book describing the party that Opal was planning for her friends, they used the details from the story to envision what the party would look like.
They sketched out their drawings, made a list of all of the things that she served and the decorations that she had, and then they recreated their classroom to be like the main character's party.
This included homemade egg salad sandwiches cut into triangles (complete with toothpicks with little frills on the end), peanut butter sandwiches also cut into triangles, a special punch called "Dump Punch," and a giant jar of pickles.
Dog pictures and crepe paper ribbon decorated the classroom. Once the classroom was set up the way we envisioned it in the book, they got time to snuggle with their special visitor, Petunia, thanks to teacher Jillian, and then settled in to watch the movie!
