The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore Common Core Lesson

My Aunt Robin sent me this book The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore a year ago and it was fantastic.  So this year I read it to them again and we kicked it up a notch and it was marvelous.  The heavens shined their awesomeness upon us and there were unicorns and rainbows!  So I need to share!

First of all, let me tell you about this amazing book.  The book begins with Morris Lessmore in New Orleans (it doesn't say that so INFER) and suddenly a hurricane hits and Morris looses everything including the words in his book and his motivation in life.  He stumbles upon a flying lady and some flying books and is lead to a library.  He finds himself, happiness, and helps the books out until he is a very old man.  Then he too flies away and someone new stumbles upon the library. 

There are so many lessons that you can do just reading this book aloud with your kids.  There are some amazing vocabulary words that you can dig into.  There is ample opportunity to infer about New Orleans, Katrina, Morris' feelings, and the cycles you see in the book.  This books has Social Studies and Science embedded into it with New Orleans and the Hurricane.  Your children will want to "write of their joys and sorrows, of all that they know and everything that they hope for" (a repetitive line in the book) after reading this.  It's common core it's interesting its amazing. 

Then there is the technology!  There are TWO apps for this book.  One from Imag.N.O.Tron and one from Moonbot books.  The Moonbot app allows you to hear the book read and interact with it on the Ipad (or whatever device you download to) AND it has the ACADEMY AWARD WINNING SHORT FILM that goes along with it!!!!  You can compare and contrast the book and the movie.  The app helps the kids understand the book better with the animation, another person besides you reading it, and gives them an interesting rereading.  The Imag.N.O.Tron app has you use the camera in your device over the book to interact with it.  It also reads the book to the children, plays music, etc.  Both apps allow you to integrate a music element to your classroom through the song Pop Goes the Weasel. 

If you don't want to buy the apps the movie is available online.  I found a great blog post by My Bookshelf that review the book and has a link to the movie.  You can find that here. 

The reason I think that the work my students produced was so amazing this year was because of the technology.  I think that it took their engagement and therefore their work up a thousand notches.  Their writing was excellent, their reading response journals amazed me, and just the conversations about the book/movie/apps/etc was impressive.  If you need more lesson ideas you can go to teachingbooks for some more ideas. 

My kids even made another IMovie.  I told you last post that I was obsessed right?!?  My third graders did a great job I think.