This week’s Oklahoma Reader takes my students to Spiro Mounds, through the eyes of a young black bear who follows the smell of smoke down the Arkansas River and finds a village he was told to stay away from.
I changed how I group the class for this one. I had planned a lower group and a higher group. I ended up with two mixed-level groups reading the same story at the same time, so my beginning readers hear rich vocabulary and my stronger readers get the long parts they’ve been asking for.
I also looked past my own classroom. Every reader in the series now includes a history background page with a map, an extension for an older student, and a casting guide for small groups, so it works for a homeschool family or a co-op as well as a class.
The first reader in the series, Bison on the Oklahoma Prairie, is free.
