ANNIE B., MADE FOR TV: STEM & Language Arts Lessons Plans & Book Club
Best Users: STEM Educators, Classroom Teachers, Librarians, Book Clubs
Best Audience: Children Grades 04-06
LESSON PLANS
In Amy Dixon’s chapter book Annie B., Made for TV (Running Press Kids), Annie B. is a “wrinventor,” a writer and inventor, who thinks up new inventions and then writes up commercials for them. With these lesson plans, students will be able to understand and explain what an invention is and why people create them and will be able to understand and demonstrate how advertisers market a product.
DOWNLOAD Annie B., Made for TV: STEM & LA Lesson Plans (PDF)
BOOK CLUB ACTIVITIES
Invite your Book Club members to explore inventions and inventors from books in your collection and online resources and make some of Annie B’s fictional inventions with real hands-on STEM activities.
DOWNLOAD Annie B., Made for TV: STEM Programming Ideas (PDF)
Thank you to our 5th grade “wrinventors” who test drove these lesson plans with their amazing ideas!
Prefer viewing on TeacherTube? Watch the videos on Curious City’s channel!
Lesson Plans & Programming Creator
Suzanne Costner is a library media specialist and STEM coordinator in an elementary school. Before finding her perfect home in the library, she taught in other classrooms for 20 years. She loves everything about children’s and young adult literature, often reviewing books on her blog or for School Library Journal. Suzanne is also a science geek who enjoys building rockets and programming robots with her students. She has won many awards for the STEM program, and in 2017 she was named Tech Innovator Teacher of the Year for her school district and the C.A.P. National Aerospace Education Teacher of the Year.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Annie B., Made for TV
By Amy Dixon
Published by Running Press Book Publishers
ISBN-13: 9780762463855
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years
Eleven-year-old Annie Brown is used to being on the losing end of comparisons to her almost-always best friend Savannah. Savannah is MVP of the track team, has straight As, and, predictably, wins the most coveted school spirit award on the last day of 5th grade. Fortunately, Annie does have one very specialized skill.
Inspired by As Seen on TV commercials, Annie likes to invent products and write clever sales pitches to go along with them. So when an opportunity arises to audition for a local web show called The Cat’s Meow, Annie knows her future is set. She’s going to wow those producers with her fabulous writing and made-for-TV announcer voice. Of course, things don’t happen quite according to plan, and soon Annie is worried about losing both the opportunity she’s been training for her whole life, and her best friend.
“Dealing with themes of self-acceptance and jealousy, Dixon’s story keeps the drama firmly in the middle grade range….A light and humorous story that will be best received by younger middle grade readers seeking gentler fare than The Dork Diaries.”
—School Library Journal
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“Annie’s first-person narration is hilariously astute…Readers graduating from Junie B. to lengthier stories will find a new book-friend in Annie B.”
—Kirkus Reviews
