The Boxcar Children Craftivity!

We've been in our "Author Study" unit for a few weeks now, and lately, we've been focusing on Gertrude Chandler Warner-- the author of The Boxcar Children series! 

I LOVE Mrs. Warner for numerous reasons...the first of which: she was a teacher!  Secondly, she wrote these books for CHILDREN to ENJOY reading, back in a time when there weren't many fun and exciting chapter books for kids!  (Did you know that lots of schools and librarys actually frowned upon her books because of the "adventures" of unsupervised children?!  Crazy!!)

So today, my class did a super fun Boxcar Children activity (really a "craftivity") with The Boxcar Children, Book #1!  I like to call it "A Look Into The Boxcar Children"!  (As a side note, you can use this with ANY of the Boxcar Children books, but my class has just started with #1!)

We began with a copied red "boxcar", which my kiddos colored the roof of with their black crayon.

Then, we cut them out carefully around the edges!

Next, we cut out our "title" to use as the door!  Students added handles and knobs, since there's not one on there.  I even had a fun friend ask if he could put a "keypad lock", because he didn't want anyone to get into his!  (got to love the sense of humor!).  After the door, we cut out our wheels and glued them on! 

Finally, my kiddos got a sheet of lined "boxcar" paper to do their actual reading assignment with!  I had them "retell" the story to me so far  (we haven't QUITE finished the first book yet).  They really gave great details, and went ABOVE AND BEYOND in describing the setting, because "after all, Ms. Hubbard, we ARE looking INSIDE the boxcar!" (again, got to love the humor!)

I was talking to my team this afternoon about this fun project, and the one thing I really loved about it was the fact that my KIDS loved it!  They probably could have had the exact same prompt to write about in our Reading Notebooks, but they wrote so much more because it was a fun and cute new project!  So exciting!

AND, since it went so well, I just HAD to compile it all into a file to share with other teachers!  I've posted in on TpT, and I'm about to post it on TN (which btw, have you seen the new site?!  Ah-mazing!). 

You know how much I love all of you guys, though, SO here's my GIVEAWAY for the evening:  Be the first follower to comment below with the names of the 4 children in the Boxcar Children series, and I will GIVE you my new craftivity pack for free! :)

I hope everyone had a GREAT week, and I hope you will have an even better weekend!  Be sure to stop back by in the next few days for some BIG changes and maybe even a BIG, HUMONGO, ENORMOUS giveaway...hint hint...  :)