Ms. Frizzle's Adventures Ancient Egypt-Graphic Novel-Historical Fiction

Ms. Frizzle's Adventures, Ancient Egypt by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen is a graphic novel full of many great facts.  In this book Ms. Frizzle takes her class on an adventure to ancient Egypt to see the pyramids and other great artifacts located there.  The book starts off with the students loading the plane as their tour guide attempts to teach them everything he knows about Egypt.  As the children sleep he explains where Egypt is located and some things that are great to see there such as mummies, pharos, pyramids, etc.   Once the class arrives, Ms. Frizzle doesn’t want to miss out on anything so she guides her class away from the tour guide and closer to the actual village people of Egypt.  Here they learned about the goddess of pertility Hathor, and about how Egyptians grow food on the farms.  Next, Ms. Frizzle travels to the Nile River where they learn about its great benefits to the community.  Throughout the entire trip Ms. Frizzle and her class are introduced to so many interesting facts about different Egyptian Gods, the Nile River, farming techniques, and other great ways of life.  I think this book is great for students because it is not only a great graphic novel but it also has a story for students to follow.  I would definitely use this book in my class as a fun way to teach about ancient Egypt because it has many great facts that I didn’t even know before I read the book.  Also, I think using a book like this is a better way to teach rather than just listing facts on the board for students to copy. It helps students make meaning to what they are learning which I think is very important.  For an activity with this book I would have students get in groups and each group take a specific part of the book.  I would assign each group a couple pages to focus on and then each group would create some kind of way to present the information that they found on those pages.  Students could create a play, a poster, anything that would get the information out to the whole class.  This would be a great activity for students because it works on research skills, helps students in picking out important information and facts out of a book, and it allows students to be creative.