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Notetaking: The Lightning Thief

This journal has been designed to accompany your reading of The Lightning Thief.

The first book in the Percy Jackson series, The Lightning Thief, is an engaging read for your sixth grade classroom.

This journal is designed to provide a way for your students to organize their thinking as they read.

This is another free resource for teachers and homeschool families from The Curriculum Corner.

This journal has been designed to accompany your reading of The Lightning Thief.

Reading Percy Jackson

As we began studying Greek mythology, I found that my students were more interested in the stories we read in comparison to past reading.

I had been struggling to find texts the majority found engaging. Also, I am working hard to find chapter books that will hold their interest.

Another teacher who was having similar struggles, tried reading The Lightning Thief as a class and found that almost all students were engaged and wanted to keep reading each day.

I thought it was worth a try!

When I handed out the books students were shocked by the length and couldn’t believe we were actually planning on reading the entire book.

Once we started reading, students were begging me to not stop. Some days we ended up skipping other lessons because they were so engaged in the reading.

Because many of my students do not often read complete chapter books, I decided that we would read this one together.

Most days I read aloud and they followed along. On a few days when I was sick, I would play a recording of the chapter from YouTube.

Notetaking Packet

For children who did not often choose to read chapter books, I felt like The Lightning Thief could be a challenging read. There were many important characters to keep track of. Also, there were many events readers needed to remember to make sense of what was happening.

I created a booklet for students to use as we read.

For each chapter, students would find the names of important characters and spots where they could take notes.

Many of my students benefit from being able to doodle about what they are hearing as they learn. I included blank boxes for this.

Also, there is a spot where students can record new words and their meanings.

Finally, the bottom of the pages contained lines for students to write a short summary. I asked that they wrote three sentences containing the most important events. As we began the book, we would talk about this as a class. Later on, students would complete this independently.

As we finished the first book, students were begging for us to read the second book next semester. While we don’t have the time to read it in class, I am hoping that this will encourage some of them to pick up the rest of the series and read!

You can download this free resource by clicking on the apples below:

As with all of our resources, The Curriculum Corner creates these for free classroom use. Our products may not be sold. You may print and copy for your personal classroom use. These are also great for home school families!

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.