Excerpt

Book

The Three Questions by John J. Muth
Scholastic Press, 2002 (gr. 2-7)

A young boy searches for the answers to three important questions, and finds that only he can supply the answers.

Idea

Before sharing this book, ask readers to identify the three most important questions to guide their lives. Remind them to think carefully about the questions that they must answer in order to make decisions that will lead to a better life for themselves.

Idea

Before sharing the book, ask readers to answer the boy's three questions:

When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do? Discuss the individual answers and the rationale the students have for their questions.

Readers can then ask people they know to answer the three questions from this story. They can record what people say, and the gender and age of the person responding. Compare the answers given to determine whether there are any similarities in the responses from people of different ages and genders. Make a graph or chart to visually show the different responses by age and gender.

Idea

Readers can make their own Most Important booklets, illustrating the role the three "most importants" from this book have in their lives. They fold a piece of drawing paper in half. On the outside front page they draw a picture of themselves. In the inside two pages and on the back outside page, they illustrate their most important time, their most important person, and their most important thing.