Third-grade students often need help organizing their thoughts about books. The traditional form, which cues students to start with a topic sentence, write a three-paragraph summary, list a few interesting facts and state an opinion about the book, can help teach children what to focus on. Follow-up projects add a creative element. For example, a traditional book report about Babe Ruth might be augmented with a diorama of the Babe playing at Yankee Stadium or being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Try a twist on the hanging mobile report. Instead of hanging facts to make a mobile, why not glue them onto a baseball diamond. The people most important to Babe Ruth could be placed on the field, with facts about his life on each of the bases, for example. A student could then be required to write a more elaborate paragraph about one of the key people or events in his life and explain why she choose that person or event.
Time lines help students understand the sequence of events and how one event influences subsequent ones. Students can write key events in Babe Ruth's life on a baseball bat drawn on poster board. Experiment with color. For example, key people could be written in in blue and key events, such as his transfer to the Yankees from the Red Sox, could be in red.
Similar to the sandwich report used in many classrooms, students assemble facts about Babe Ruth's life into a candy bar. Instruct students to write key events in Babe Ruth's life on five nuts, key people on the nougat filling, and the title and author of the biography used, on the chocolate coating. This helps students focus on prioritizing characters and events. For example, Brother Matthias--so influential when young Babe was growing up at an orphanage in Baltimore--played a very large role in his life and career and would be a prominent character.